Four week old Cornish Xs had to be butchered...

[Nodaksnakelover]

Yesterday I noticed one of my Cornish cross birds was already down on it's feet. Like it had no control of anything past it's hocks and could only by it's hocks move around. Today I totally stripped out the pen they live in and put new shavings down. I noticed a bird that didn't want to move at all and it's comb and wattles looked pale and was breathing hard. So I brought the two of them home today and butchered them. My five year old daughter had a great time helping me and even stuck her hand in to pull guts out along with plucking them. I noticed that the sick bird had a yellow liver.

Now my question is, since the bird had a yellow liver, I'm assuming it had gotten some kind of infection. Will the infection affect the taste of the meat that I will find it unpleasant? I made this bird's neck extra short so I could recognize which one it was when I finally go to cook it! I just felt I might as well butcher it early rather than just let it die. And from looking at it's liver, I'd say it was on it's way out. They are similar in size to the cornish game hens at the store.

I also have a runt in this batch. That one's barely bigger than the layer chicks that are also in this bunch of chicks I got. Like it's a throwback of sorts. Still very roundish like the rest but easily half the size! I'm amazed at how big these cornish x chicks are getting. I'm at the half way point and already knowing I'll miss them when they are gone. I enjoy this extra animal chore in my life. I'm curious what other's experiences are with runts and butchering birds you see are going down one way or another.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

The leg problems yours are having are typical if they are grown too fast. They almost walk backwards in attempts to stand up and walk forward. It's weird, but it's best to cull these when you do come across them.

Are you feeding them 24/7 or are you restricting their feed? The yellow liver sounds like a heart attack, especially the way you described its breathing. Was there any kind of fluid in the cavity? Like a yellowish color similar to what the liver looked like?

Safe to eat....

 

[Nodaksnakelover]

Thank you for your reply. Yes, there was I thought some yellow fluid. Now that I know what caused it, I'll back off the third feeder. I felt I was needing to up their feed amount as I'm only out there once a day and felt the few days previous that they sure were going after the feed like they were starving. Guess I better slow them down then! I'm unable to to mess with them more than once a day. So I don't know exactly when they run out of food except that my friend says they still have feed when he does evening chores. As it's his farm that I keep them at. These are things I'll just have to keep in mind then. They only had more or less flour in the bottom of their feed pans and no crumbles left each day. It was when I saw how hard they were attacking the feeders when I filled up this past week I went ahead and added a third feeder. I use standard chicken trough feeders sold at the feed store. I'm not sure exactly how many pounds each one holds. I'll take a stab and guess ten pounds. I have 25 Cornish Xs left now along with 18 layer birds.

I'll remove the third feeder tommorow. Hopefully I don't have any more heart attack victims! But I worry about a point that I'm not feeding them enough... Today the two feeders were empty except for the third new trough.

Sad to think my overindulging them is killing them!

 

[dancingbear]

I think the yellow fluid in the abdomen is acites fluid, from liver problems. It sounds like the liver may have been very fatty, causing a yellow appearance, and interfering with liver function, too. Sounds like the bird probably had CHF as well, which would have led to a heart attack before much longer. The most obvious signs are wheezing, and the comb turning dark purple when the bird is resting on it's keel, turning red again when it stands up and walks.

That's all academic anyway, it doesn't really matter. The birds were soon to be goners, and you were right to go ahead and butcher them.

 

[Nodaksnakelover]

all I know is today was the day and I had some extra time to clean the pen out and put down new shavings. So the whole time I kept thinking, ok, just live a little longer bird...a little longer... And as we got in the car the poor thing was really looking bad! But it was still breathing when we got home but only real shallow like now. No gaping of the beak and pretty limp. Just you could see it was still trying to breathe. And it didn't struggle hardly at all when I slit the throat and bled it out. Other than the yellow liver everything looked the same to me.

Guess it's all new experience to me and a great learning experience for both my daughter and I. I do like having something she and I can both participate in. She had fun playing with the chickens in the adjacent pen as I was cleaning. And she'd keep telling me to come look again and again and she was holding whatever bird. I'm just glad she took it to heart from the beginning that all the white ones are as she calls em, meat chickens. LOL! But the rest are "my buddies"

Yes I could probably save money at the grocery store. But there's no way you could put a price on something that gets the family working together on a project and building memories that will last forever!

Thank you for the replys!