oh no, dead chickens, soaken wet live ones, questions!

[momofchicks]

Okay for many predator reasons we have to have our meaties in a container, very large watering trough. Anyway last night we had a heck of a storm it blew off the tarp cover that we had nailed to another pen, so that put all that rain in the pen of the meaties. We went out this morning to fix the tarp and found 12 dead chickens. Looks like the others stepped on them to get out of the water. There was about 2" of water in the bottom of the pen. We got it all out and put down new bedding and turned on the heat lamps again. So my questions are, are the live chickens okay after sitting in 2" of poopy water? Did it like marinate their skin, would they still be safe to eat, culling day is April 20th. Thanks for any advice.

 

[mstricer]

How horrible, If I were you I would drill holes in the bottom. There should be no problem with the skin or meat, plus if they were standing on 12 dead chickens they should have any of the poo water on them. If you are culling next week they all should be around 5 plus lbs all ready. Everything should be fine. I would drill those holes though it looks like a wet week coming up.
Michele

 

[Rebel Rooster]

Your meaties will be fine! They will be safe to process as well...

 

[momofchicks]

Thanks. I am praying the others can hang on until next week. The temperature dropped about 20 degrees too so they are wet and cold.

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

they should not still be wet and cold!!!!
get them out of there, bring them in the house, dry them with towels and then gently blow dry them, or you are going to loose the rest.