7 week old meat chicken...too eat or not to eat?

[algerville]

I am new to meat chickens. We have the cornish cross. I have one of the 26 that is a little amaller than the rest and acting like he is dying. Just laying on belly not interested in eating so we culled him and processed him. Now his heart (remember i am no doctor) looked like it had a tiny bit of fluid in sac around it. Meat looked fine. Should i be leary because i dont know for sure why he wouldnt eat or walk around? How do you know when NOT to eat meat that may be diseased?

 

[Pork Pie]

This is only my personal view, but i would not eat the meat as you don't know what the cause of the illness was.

CT

 

[donrae]

I'd eat it in a heartbeat. You'd probably be amazed how many chickens with cardiac/lung/liver issues you've eaten over your life if you've eaten grocery store chicken.

there's a big difference between a cardiac illness and an infectious disease. Lots of your CX aren't the healthiest and have heart issues, or ascites (fluid in the abdominal cavity) or fatty livers. This does not effect the meat quality at all. It's not an infectious illness or anything that would change the meat at all. It simply makes the bird tired, weak, short of breath and often causes discolored/purple combs due to lack of oxygenation to the tissues.

I would not eat a bird that I found dead and didn't know why or when. I would not eat a bird that had had an infection of any sort. I would think long and hard about how hungry I was before eating a bird that had been attacked by an unknown predator. But a meatie that just isn't thriving, they're fair game.