Hawk attack - safe to eat?

[MrJesse34]

So I have been free ranging for a month or so, and yesterday I had my first hawk attack. When I went outside, I noticed it was silent and there was no noise or movement anywhere in the yard. Then I see the hawk fly up from the ground to the fence, then off the fence. I walked up to where the hawk was and saw the dead chicken. It had been dead no more than an hour when I found it. I took it down and cleaned it to be eaten. It did not really bleed when I cut the head off. There was really no marks on teh chicken either from the hawk, just a few marks around the butt.

Question - is it safe to eat this bird? I would think it is fine seeing as how I can say with confidence that the chicken was killed very recently. I couldn't seem to find any info on here regarding this topic.

 

[Mehjr10]

Sorry for the loss, but I would eat it.

 

[Nambroth]

Use normal safe meat butchering practices, and you should be totally okay. Since the chicken was deceased and then not butchered immediately, you may want to brine the meat / soak in a saltwater bath for a few hours before preparation just to draw out any blood, but that is a personal flavor preference only and has nothing to do with the safety of the meat (this is what I do for wild game where there is a time gap between death and butchering, seems to help the flavor).

Sorry for your loss!

 

[MrJesse34]

Brining the chicken is a great idea actually!! Thanks for the heads up.

The second chicken that was killed, I didn't really have an idea of when or how long it was dead so I just threw it away. Seems like such a waste but like everyone says, those are the dangers of free ranging.

I've been considering running some string / rope from tree to tree in my free range area, and then stretching bird mesh over top of it. That way, the free range area has a "cover" of some sort to provide extra protection if they can't get to the covered coop and run in time.