Fox Bite on bird, question since its a meat bird

[MikeDaub]

Quick question for you all dealing a Fox bite on one our meat birds...

I have the care handled.. We have it cleaned up and its working on healing. Still a bit of an odor to it, but such is life. It doesn't look infected of anything, so that seems positive..

Since this is a meat bird, one we plan to butcher for meat, should we be at all concerned about it? The fox has been dealt with, so he won't be coming back, and while he wasn't a handsome looking fox, it didn't seem like rabies or mange were involved.. My concern is that we eat this little guy (the chicken, not the fox) and get sick ourselves.

It has been about 3 days now, and the chicken seems normal and isn't acting odd, so thinking we might be in the clear, but figured I would ask what you all have done. Part of us just wants to say let's not eat it and keep it in the flock with our egg layers, and part of us just wanted to butcher as planned..

Thoughts.... And thanks in advance..

 

[cstronks]

I mean I'm not completely sure in this territory, but I would advise you to air on the side of caution and likely not eat this bird. I doubt the fox was rabid, because there are tell tale signs of rabies in animals, yet the fox likely was just a normal fox with a slight amount of mange so I wouldn't be concerned. Yet I don't know what bacteria would be latent in the chicken after the bite heals? Maybe none? Also cooking the meat would likely kill about any bacteria left on the bird. Again, I'm not sure what to do, but the clear safe option is to not eat the bird, even though the meat might be perfectly fine? Maybe somebody on the forum has encountered this issue before and can address the problem better!

 

[MikeDaub]

Thanks for this..

The more I thought about it, we decided it was best just to dispatch the bird. Since it was a meat bird, if we kept it around just to keep around, it eventually would eat itself too fat, which then causes more problems. And like you said, even if I can't see signs of something bacteria or whatever, it doesn't mean its not there..

It is a shame, but I we did what we feel needed to be done..

Thanks for the thoughts on it. Always nice to hear someone else's opinion..