Eating diseased chickens

[CluckyChook]

What illness and disease of chickens makes them a no-go for the table and what illness and disease make them OK for the table ?
Obviously the wellfair of my chooks comes first no matter what.

 

[Tomtommom]

I would go by how the meat looks, smells etc. Are the organs ok looking? Liver especially. If it all looks ok, you're generally safe as long as you use the normal precautions (cook til done etc.) Clear intestinal issues are one to be cautious of, due to E.coli and Salmonella.. but, both of those are pretty much present in ALL chicken these days in some concentration. Being careful not to puncture the intestine during processing is key.

It's very hard to accurately diagnose diseases without autopsy, a lot of symptoms point at more than one disease.

Store bought chicken comes with a host of nasties (http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2014/02/the-high-cost-of-cheap-chicken/index.htm)

As long as you make the kill, it should be ok. Don't go butchering birds you find dead unless you KNOW what happened and even then be very cautious (I lost a bird a few weeks ago to sudden frost, found the bird still warm... I ate her without ill effect)

 

[CluckyChook]

Thanks Tomtommom. This pretty much is what my husband and I were thinking. Thank you for the tips on watching out for puncturing the gut, we will examine the internals with some scrutiny before we decide to freeze or bury, I actually did some youtube "research" and there is a good one on what is a healthy internals compared to what is not healthy so we'll use this as a guide I think.
My old girls got a respiratory illness that has knocked the socks of them and they have stopped laying and we wanted to cull before they get more sick, (I do care for my chooks dearly but also cull for meat and this was their last season with us anyway) it's a nasty cold they have got (maybe bronchitis) and we lost a few chicks and one chook already. I have never had to deal with culling almost my entire flock of sick chooks before so it's gonna be one hell of a weekend
Thanks again Esther

 

[Tomtommom]

Good luck!

I hate to kill my hens, but sometimes it's the kindest thing to do.

 

[donrae]

To me, if it's sick, I don't eat it. If it's injured, it's fair game for the pot. Granted, a respiratory illenss in a bird probably doesn't contaminate the meat, and if you cook it you kill the virus or bacteria anyway, but the idea just skeeves me out and I'm just plain not that hungry. Sick animals still have a place as compost, it's not like they go to waste. Some of the best tomatoes I grew last year had a dead chicken buried near the roots---no, I didn't tell most folks that

 

[rosamaria101]

what video was that? I would like to watch it

 

[CluckyChook]

Hi Roaemaria101

I didn't save the video sorry but I was searching under a chicken autopsy when I came across it.

 

[Kelly's Chickens]

On Friday, Dec 26, I found a dead rooster in my coop and another having a lot of difficulty breathing. There were two others seemly ok still in the coop. The other 6 were already outside eating. I picked up the 2 good looking ones and noticed they were crop bound; their crops were huge! Since I was raising them for meat anyway, I butchered the 2 good looking ones and the one having difficulty breathing. The dead one went into the burn barrel. I'm not sure if he was crop bound as he was stiff and his feet were in the way of the crop.

The livers looked great on all three birds but the lungs were whitish instead of pink. I didn't see any worms in the crop or the intestines. The cavity itself had a lot of yellow liquid in it when I opened it up. Their crops didn't smell real bad and only had the normal food in them. After plucking them by hand, the skin had red/blue spots on them like a human gets that's real close to death (mottling). Are these birds ok to eat?
Kelly

 

[Tomtommom]

On Friday, Dec 26, I found a dead rooster in my coop and another having a lot of difficulty breathing. There were two others seemly ok still in the coop. The other 6 were already outside eating. I picked up the 2 good looking ones and noticed they were crop bound; their crops were huge! Since I was raising them for meat anyway, I butchered the 2 good looking ones and the one having difficulty breathing. The dead one went into the burn barrel. I'm not sure if he was crop bound as he was stiff and his feet were in the way of the crop.

The livers looked great on all three birds but the lungs were whitish instead of pink. I didn't see any worms in the crop or the intestines. The cavity itself had a lot of yellow liquid in it when I opened it up. Their crops didn't smell real bad and only had the normal food in them. After plucking them by hand, the skin had red/blue spots on them like a human gets that's real close to death (mottling). Are these birds ok to eat?
Kelly

How did their hearts look? The fluid is a sign of congestive heart failure. The fluid would cause them to have trouble breathing as well. Blue spots would indicate lack of oxygen (since the heart had trouble moving blood around and the fluid kept the lungs from expanding properly).

I had a little rooster that had it, he had a enlarged heart.

They would be ok to eat.

 

[enola]

.......each to their own I guess........

Personally, if the chicken doesn't appear to be healthy, there is no way I am going to butcher it......