meat off

Verb

meat off (third-person singular simple present meats off, present participle meating off, simple past and past participle meated off)

1. (transitive) To train an insectivorous bird to eat non-live food.
   • The birds, when secured, are placed in a store cage, and quickly conveyed to the bird dealers in the Seven Dials. These worthies then proceed at once to "meat them off" This is accomplished thus :— Some fresh raw beef is scraped; and being divested of all fibrous substance, it is mixed into a soft...1865 [1795], J. M. Bechstein, translated by H. G. Adams, Cage and Chamber-Birds: Their Natural History, Habits, Food, Diseases, Management, and Modes of Capture, London: H. G. Bohn, translation of...
   • Being very difficult to "meat off" if full-grown when caught, it is preferable to rear this bird from the nest, when it should be fed upon the same food as young Nightingale's, but otherwise the Wood Warbler's food will amply suffice.1878, W. A. Blakston, W. Swaysland, August F. Wiener, The Illustrated Book of Canaries and Cage-Birds, British and Foreign, London, Paris & New York: Cassell, Petter, Galpin & Co., page 319