Butchered a tom today, found some odd stuff...

[RachelleM1986]

I butchered 2 BBB toms today; one was just fine in appearance, but the 2nd had some oddities. First off, the spot above his tail (still on his back) was black, covering an area about the width of a small apple. I noticed the skin was very brittle and kinda mushed apart really easily, and the underlying meat was a greenish color. When my friend and I opened him up, she pulled out 2 rather large yellow cartilage-type chunks. She commented that it was something she'd see in a rabbit with pasteurella.

Is it possible for turkeys to have pasteurella? Is it contagious?

If it's not that, what could it be?

I have a theory for the black part - we had a coyote get into the pen about 4 days ago now and grabbed a hen (which is why I wanted to do the butchering today) and perhaps it tried to go for this tom...bit I'm not sure what the cartilage stuff would be from

Sorry for no pics, didn't really have quick access to a sink...or a camera for that matter...

Wither way, we figured it to be tainted meat and threw the carcass to the desert I hate wasting

 

[hogster160]

This is what I found. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasteurella_canis

Pasteurella canis is a Gram-negative, nonmotile, penicillin-sensitive coccobacillus belonging to the Pasteurellaceae family.[1] Bacteria from this family cause zoonotic infections in humans. These infections manifest themselves as skin or soft tissue infections after an animal bite. It has been known to cause serious disease in immunocompromised patients.[2][3]

Pasteurella was first described around 1880 and thought to be associated with chicken cholera and hemorrhagic septicemia in animals. The genus was first cultured in 1885. In 1920, strains of Pasteurella were isolated and observed in human infections.[1]

Further down on the page it reads this:

Disease

P. canis is an opportunistic pathogen that can infect both animals and humans.

Animal Infections

P. canis can be found in healthy domesticated, farm raised, and wild animals, such as dogs, cats, rabbits, horses, sheep, cattle, ferrets, deer, and even California sea lion. The bacteria are normally isolated from the oral cavities and respiratory tracts of these animals.[2][16][17][18][19][20] P. canis biotype 1 was shown to secrete toxin that is analogous to P. multocida toxin, but its identity is unknown.[21] P. canis is responsible for a number of canine infections, including systemic infection, external otitis, bacterial rhinitis, vertebral osteomyelitis, meningomyelitis (a type of myelitis), bronchopneumonia, tracheitis, paranasal sinus inflammation, and toxicosis.[22][8][23][15][24] Horses infected with the bacteria may develop arthritis.[17] The bacteria also cause pneumonia in cows and various infections in sheep, cats, rabbits, and deer.[16][10][15]

Human Infections

P. canis is mainly transmitted from animals to humans through animal bites, scratches, or licking over wounds.[22][7] However, some patients developed infections without any scratches and puncture wounds.[25] In one case, a patient exposed to rabbit secretion was infected with P. canis.[20] Those with rheumatoid arthritis, cirrhosis, and diabetes mellitus are more susceptible to the bacteria. Patients who are immunocompromised also have higher risk of infections.[2]
P. canis often causes soft tissue infections and wound infections as well as systemic bacteremia in humans.[2][3][7][20] These infections include peritonitis, conjunctivitis, osteomyelitis, and arthritis.[26][27] [25] Joint prosthetics can also be infected by the bacteria.[28]

I'm not a doctor/vet, and there is a lot of information out on the net that says yes it is contagious, very contagious in fact, and some that say it isn't. It also says this from the above link:

Antibiotics Treatment and Resistance

Many common antibiotics can successfully treat P. canis infections in both humans and animals. P. canis has shown sensitivity to ampicillin (penicillin), cefuroxime (second generation cephalosporin), most third generation cephalosporin (cefixime, cefotaxime, ceftriaxone, and cefoperazone), ciprofloxacin (quinolones), trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (sulfonamides), chloramphenicol, most aminoglycosides, and tetracycline. However, the bacterium is also resistant to numerous drugs, such as dicloxacillin (penicillin), some aminoglycosides (spectinomycin and neomycin), vancomycin (glycopeptides), cephalexin and cefadoxil (first generation cephalosporin), erythromycin (macrolides), and imipenem (carbapenem).[2][27][7]

So I am glad to hear that you disposed of the carcus. Perhaps that fox did indeed take a bite of that tom. Something may have been in its teeth, gotten into the meat, and the toms body tried to calcify over those items as not belonging to its system, and the infection having already started, making those chunks appear as a cartilage-type.

I also found this, as I said there is a lot of information on the web.

http://www.merckmanuals.com/vet/poultry/fowl_cholera/overview_of_fowl_cholera.html
Etiology and Transmission

Pasteurella multocida, the causal agent, is a small, gram-negative, nonmotile rod with a capsule that may exhibit pleomorphism after repeated subculture. P multocida is considered a single species although it includes three subspecies: multocida, septica, and gallicida. Subspecies multocida is the most common cause of disease, but septica and gallicida may also cause cholera-like disease.

http://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/1257/back-to-basics-pasteurella-and-erysipelas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fowl_cholera

Hopefully someone else with more experience will come on to answer. All this information is just what I found on the web. Although, I did have a turkey hen who was ripped open by the tom. We were told they were bronze. But the original owner didn't know if they were bbb or heritage. We decided they were heritage, (here's my story https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/799760/what-kind-of-turkey-are-we#post_11545933 ) turned out to be bbb. The hen weighed 39 lbs cleaned. When we butchered her after the tom caused her injury, we had found some green meat in another area aside from her main injury. It appeared as though he pierced her flesh with a couple of his nails. That is where the green colored meat was. We chose to discard her as well.

I will say, we had no problems in the flock of chickens or the tom at all. So I am guessing the infection was isolated to just the turkey hen from the injury itself.

Deb