can i eat a chicken that was killed by a rabed fox.

[chickengeorgeto]

I doubt that any fox that is currently killing your poultry is a rabid fox. Rabid animals are generally frightened of animals that they are normally unafraid of, and aggressive towards animals that that the rabid animal is normally frightened of. This behavior is why rabies used to be called "hydrophobia" meaning that the rabid animal could be to frightened of water to drink when it is thirsty.

 

[hotmessJess]

That def tops the list of stupid stupid questions. Do you have any common since? Did you think about that before you asked? If your that dumb to ask that please eat the chicken raw while your at it.

That was quite a rude response, considering it is highly UNLIKELY to cause rabies infection. You can eat the meat of infected mammals without becoming sick as long as you do not eat the brain or marrow. So it was a valid question.

 

[LeafBlade12345]

That def tops the list of stupid stupid questions. Do you have any common since? Did you think about that before you asked? If your that dumb to ask that please eat the chicken raw while your at it.

What kind of response is this? It was completely and totally rude and uncalled for. The OP had a valid question. If no one asked questions than yes, they would be stupid, but the question is out there, so obviously the opposite is true. If you don't have anything nice or constructive to add, please do not post at all. I encourage that you delete your post before this thread is locked or you are banned.

 

[Lady of McCamley]

To OP:

I would never eat anything killed by a wild animal. I agree it is doubtful the fox has rabies, but it can have a host of other things that can contaminate the meat from parasites to bacteria.

More importantly, you would never know how long the bird had lain in the open with bite wounds growing all matter of things, and chickens naturally can harbor a host of bacteria.

While it seems a waste of meat, a trip to the ER for eColi, salmonella, listeria, campylobacter, would also be a huge waste of time, money, and general well being.

Just toss the meat with gloves, incineration being best.

LofMc

 

[jajeanpierre]

Rabies can live on a variety of surfaces for at most I think 144 hours.

I researched it because I had the exact same question you posed.

One night I forgot to lock up one of my rooster pens and (I believe) a raccoon killed him. I found the rooster stuck in my fence and partly eaten. He wasn't even cold!

I was so angry. I had been intending to slaughter the rooster and was really mad a raccoon had taken a few bites out of my rooster. I think I found the rooster very soon after he had been killed. Rigor mortis had not even set in and the raccoon had only taken a few bites from the breast and the leg. There were no puncture wounds into the abdomen.

I decided to process it and make it into soup. I cut away all the edges that the animal had bitten and processed it under running water.

Only after I had done it did I think--oh, what if the animal had rabies and I got rabies from the saliva in the bite wounds. So I did a lot of research. (I might be wrong about the 144 hours, but somewhere there is a study that tested how long rabies stayed alive on various surfaces and it was scary long.)

I found out that some vet techs got rabies from treating sheep that had been attacked by a rabid animal.

So far, I haven't developed rabies and enjoyed my soup. I regret not wearing gloves. That happened weeks ago. There was a definite "ick" factor but I just hated wasting good meat. I hate slaughtering my excess roosters--I don't mind the processing at all, it is the taking of a life that really bothers me--so the wastage really bothered me a lot.

A rabid animal in general is an animal that is sick with a neurological disease so is not likely to be hunting in a normal fashion.

A fox that comes to your hen house time and time again is probably a healthy fox. You need to do something about making it a little more fox proof.

 

[TalkALittle]

Wear gloves and toss the carcass in the trash or incinerate it. If you absolutely can't bear to see the carcass go to waste, skin it, boil it and feed it to your birds. Birds can't get rabies.