Normal Fat?

[MightyMama]

We butchered one of our chickens who has been under the weather. She recovered from Cocci, but never got rid of the sneezes, even with Tylan 50 treatment. We are undecided on if we should eat her or not. This was her insides, and the fat was quite yellow. Just wondering if that's typical? Our other bird didn't have as much.

Sorry for the graphic image.

 

[Chicken-lovebirdchihuahua]

Eww

 

[Ridgerunner]

Before a hen or pullet starts laying she builds up extra fat. Some of that is to have a reserve when she starts laying eggs so she could complete the clutch but a lot of it is that the extra fat is mostly what she lives on when she goes broody. That way she does not have to spend her time off the nest looking for food but can stay on the nest and incubate the eggs. If you butcher both males and females you’ll see that the females always have more fat than males. From your post I think you have probably butchered both male and female.

Some hens store more fat than others, exactly how much will vary quite a bit. A lot of the fat is stored in what is called a fat pad in the pelvic area. Sometimes that fat pad is so thick I wonder how a hen gets an egg through it to lay though her egg making plumbing is above that so it is not really going through it. I’ve seen a lot of fat on some internal organs too.

The fat pad doesn’t look that bad, I’ve seen worse from a hen that was healthy and laying regularly. Sometimes you can get a lot of fat on the gizzard. That looks a little excessive to me but it’s not enough to stop me from eating her. I don’t know what the withdrawal period is for Tylan 50 but that’s what I’d base my decision on, not the amount of fat. But if you are not comfortable don't eat her.

 

[RUNuts]

x2 ^

I'm more worried about the Tylan than what I see in the picture. We recently lost one to egg bounding and since she was a mess inside, the dogs had a meal. Looked good, but I'm not taking the risk.

 

[MightyMama]

The tylan was months ago, not recent. I thought egg withdrawal was only a couple weeks, is it different for meat?