Butchered the manfighter-- What happened??

[UrbanviewFarm]

Hi all. Generally I troll instead of posting, but I just can't seem to find an answer to this!!

A couple months back, I was given a beautiful gold-laced Polish roo because of his nasty habit of spurring. Prettiest roo I've ever seen, in fact. He acted fine for awhile, except when I picked up one of his hens. I find protecting the flock reasonable behavior for a rooster, and let it slide. It was the day I had ahold of another roo and he started spurring out of nowhere I decided he needed eating.
So I bleed him out and pluck him, I noticed kind of a rancid smell of the blood itself. Granted he was an older roo, it just seemed a little off. After plucking I went to eviscerate and he had this BRIGHT yellow all throughout the meat, and still the unusual smell.

Long story short, I'm afraid to eat this guy. Does anybody know what causes this? Can my other poultry contract this disease or whatever happened to him?

 

[Wishing4Wings]

Don't think I'm the best person to help here, but I have read that pus in a chicken is solid (cheese-like). Don't know about the color though. This sounds like some systemic infection. (Hope not contagious to the other chickens) Were the organs normal? I think you are right not to eat it!

Hope someone who knows about this responds.

 

[UrbanviewFarm]

The organs did look mostly normal, the only different thing I noticed was how TOUGH it all was to get out. I figured that's probably because old Polish roosters aren't the best meat bird around!

 

[Wishing4Wings]

Sorry you didn't get an answer for this. I was curious to find out what it was also. You might want to try asking in the Old Timers' thread,
Chickens for 10-20 years or more? Pull up a rockin' chair and lay some wisdom on us! We are not supposed to double post, but maybe you could explain that no one responded and link them to your original question. They have hundreds of years of combined experience and wisdom, so if anyone knows it will be an OT.

You called him a "manfighter." Maybe all that yellow is just a little evilness!

 

[booker81]

The bright yellow was probably fat - in a good, well cared for chicken that eats lots of bugs, greens and whatever, the fat deposits will be bright yellow. Just like how hens lay a darker, more orange yolked egg when they have an excellent variety of feed, the fat will be the same.

The toughness is just age - connective tissues grow stronger with age, and a 2 year old chicken is harder to eviscerate than an 8 week old chicken.

The "smell" of the blood is also age - some would call it a gamey smell (like the difference in smell of an older buck deer steak than a young cow steak). Normal.

Looks like you posted 2 days ago. Hopefully you haven't tried to eat him yet - if not, let him hang out in the fridge for another 3-4 days. It's fine. For one of those days, you might like to brine him in a salt/sugar water solution, that will help the tenderness.

Then, stick him in the crockpot or a big pot on the stove with some onions, carrots and celery, and let simmer on a low heat for a couple hours. Pull the meat off the bones, strain the stock, and make up the best chicken soup you've ever had in life

 

[Wishing4Wings]

Well that's good news! No sickness, no evilness, just a good old healthy (ornery) rooster!