Myth or Truth?

[DCS]

The heart will continue to beat for several minutes, even if it isn't pumping anything or have a blood supply of its own. I sever both sets of jugulars and carotids (the carotid lies just beneath the jugular, has a thicker wall and is under higher pressures) when I butcher and much of the draining is due to gravity. While capillaries are tortuous, the large vessels of the neck are pretty straight. As part of a lab study many, many years ago I needed to remove a beating heart from a small reptile. It beat on it's own quite happily in a bowl of lactated ringer's solution for nearly 20 minutes.

And yes, blood will clot in vessels just as well in poultry as it does in humans. We see the end result of clotting all the time: stroke, heart attack, DVT, etc. (I'm not just morbid, I'm an ER doc, so blood and guts are all in a day's work.)