Green Breast Meat

[cjachens]

My daughter's 4-H meat birds have grossly green breast meat next to the breast bone. The problem is only in the
muscle that is next the breast bone, the outer breast muscle looks healthy. We have slaughtered 23 and 5 have
had this problem. The birds are Cornish crosses. The meat is soft and has a green color to it. The rest of the meat looks normal.

We did have few with some respiratory problems, weezing and sneezing. They weigh 6 to 8 lbs at slaughter, 8 weeks old.
They were fed Purina Chicken Start and Grow

Any ideas what the problem might be? We threw away the discolored meat, is the rest of the meat safe to eat?

Thanks for any help!

 

[Brunty_Farms]

It's safe to eat the other other meat.... I toss the green meat as well. Mainly it effects the tenders and it's from lack of oxygen getting to that part of the muscle, commonly seen in bigger males over 5 pounds.

 

[cjachens]

Thanks for the reply

 

[takos]

I had the same problem it is called deep pectoral myopathy, and happens in large meat birds--there is lots of good info on the net.

The info below is from an old post on backyard chickens:

The condition is caused by intense exercise of this muscle in meat birds ( flapping hard, trying to fly, flapping hard at processing time).Meat birds are being bred to have bigger and bigger breast meat and because the tenderloin is so far down in the muscle it is enclosed in a relatively unyielding membrane, any swelling of the muscle tends to cut off the blood supply. Without adequate blood supply the tissue of the muscle begins to die, or suffer necrosis. There is no way to know that it is there before hand. The rest of the chicken is fine to eat, If you ate the green it shouldn't hurt you, however it probably will not taste very good. Hope it is helpful