Is this hen supposed to be this FAT??

mmtillman

Songster
11 Years
Jan 6, 2009
969
10
151
Southwest MO near the ARK line
I butchered my first bird awhile back ...a roo...very lean meat. Yesterday I had to cull an injured hen
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and when I did I found her to be full of fat!! It was bright yellow fat and all thru her body. I removed it as best I could, but wondered if this is normal ? Does this mean I feed my girls well and that they will be nice and warm this winter? Or is this not normal? I have her in the fridge but wont eat her till I hear from you all ! Thanks!!
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fat is a solid mass but infection is thin yellow lines in flesh of the chicken, if it is globs or mass is fat but I think you might be looking at infection and thinking it is fat.why did you cull her ?
If it is fat she would be very good eating. I worked in a chicken plant and we often saw infection in the chickens around the lungs and the flesh it was always thin yellow slime substance.
It was the policy to clean the infection out with a vaccum machine and USDA would let the chicken be sold for food. A few years ago the head of USDA said chickens with cancerous growths could be passed by USDA, his reasoning was after it was cooked it was ok. I didn't want to eat cancer even if it was safe that was when Nixion was President and I don't know if the cancerous growths are still passed but I do know that the infection is still cleaned out with a vaccum, they call this a lung machine and it sucks out the yellow slime stuff with the lungs and kidneys.
 
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sorry to get off topic but in this chicken plant was it for human consumption? if so just curious on how many sick or infected birds you would see, I am so glad that I only eat my own chicken.
 
chickens plants sell sick chickens every day in this country, if you every buy the leg and thigh packages, we called this cut long johns, these are harvests from sick birds. the rest of the body is thrown away.
yes I worked for the largest chicken producer in this country and these chickens were USDA approved and sold as food for humans no chickens are sold with out the USDA approval in this country for food. every chicken going throught a plant must pass a USDA inspector but did you know that cattle and hogs are not subject to this rule in the beef and pork they only take samples to check for problems.
Chickens and Turkeys are inspected by goverment inspectors and if it's a problem it is because the laws have been changed over the years by our goverment. The chickens sold over sea to goverments like Russia and China must meet stronger laws than our meat sales. We always dreaded seeing the Russian buyers showing up to inspect our plant because they were really strick and the plant better be really clean but that being said the Russians were our largest buyers of our legs and thighs products.
This being said I think our poultry produced in this country is safe to eat as long as it is cooked to well done. Salamina is the reason the poultry has to be well cooked and most poultry carries this bactria and other products have this problem also if you eat something contamined with salamina you get very sick and might die but cooking the food kills salamina. remember the peanut butter problem that was contamined with salamina and the california lettuce that made people sick?
Cook all meats to well done and you should be safe but products that are not cooked or comtamined after cooking can make you very ill.
 
Well...that hen I posted about is sitting in the fridge now . Planned on eating her tomorrow night...But, now I wonder if I should??? That post about infection ? sorta spooked me ......
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She was all healed up from her wound, I think....but the other birds were pecking at her back and had her bleeding again .....so, I more or less culled her mainly to put her out of her misery.
Her flesh looked ok...the fat was all under the skin and around her organs...her gizzard was really fatty. Would infection do that, too??

OH well....I guess "when in doubt throw it out .....'' I just am disapointed that I wont be able to have her for Wed night dinner as planned....
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Maybe , I could butcher another one and see if it has the fat that this one had?
 
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Yes..we do feed a diet high in corn...I feed them about 3/4 egg pellets and 1/4 corn, with kitchen scraps daily...And , we do give them leftover bread as a treat maybe 3-4x a week.

Do you all think I am maybe overdoing the corn?? Is this a good balanced diet for them? Thanks !
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I'm thinking that was all fat on your bird. I'd eat it. Infection is a slime coat over the meat and it sounds like you had solid yellow chicken fat. Maybe they were gearing up for winter? I know I do this time of year
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