Quick help! Untimely death, still fit to eat?

[twentynine]

Nope! I never eat anything that is dead before I can kill it.

 

[BCMaraniac]

Thanks. I've had one friend tell me to discard and another tell me to toss him in the crock pot. We cleaned him just to have done it once, whether he would be eaten or not, and I only found one mark on his body (bruise on the butt, either from falling or from the plucking). I'm not really an expert on chicken guts, but the colors looked appropriate. His main issue was difficulty staying on his feet. He would walk a few feet, then sit or topple over. A cornish rock, and quite plump, so I think he just got too big too fast.

This morning I went to feed my CX, who always greet me at the door for their food. This morning I noticed that one of them was sitting down, and wasn't eager for breakfast like the others. I picked him up and he had absolutely no objections. When I set him down, he took about two wobbly steps and sat down again. As a retired physician, I knew that he was in congestive heart failure. One observation I made was that his comb, which normally is bright red, had a bluish discoloration, indicating decreased oxygenation of the blood. So my husband and I got everything we needed to butcher him. We bled him out, and let him drain, but rather than pluck, I opted to skin, knowing that there would be changes in skin and organs because of the heart failure. I filleted the breasts, and removed the wings, legs, and thighs, and discarded the remainder of the carcass rather than remove the internal organs, because they would be congested with blood with the congestive heart failure and be more likely to rupture.

I guess the point that I am trying to make is that you are most likely correct in that his size contributed to what you were seeing. Most likely he was in congestive heart failure, and was dying when you observed him earlier in the day. His actions are indicative of that based on what I observed with mine today. Another thing that I noticed was a bluish discoloration of the skin, which would happen because of decreased oxygen supply to the skin. The bruise you said you observed was most likely a congestion of blood there within the blood vessels that didn't drain properly because of the heart failure. I observed that in the tender on one side of the breast, so I discarded it as well.

The decrease in blood flow to the comb with cyanosis(blue discoloration) I think would be a good indicator that, to anybody who has a CX not acting normally, it is in congestive heart failure and should be butchered immediately by cutting the carotid artery in the neck to get the maximum amount of blood out since the heart isn't pumping normally.

The meat would be fine to eat in this instance. Hope this helps.

Worst case scenario would be to cook the chicken and feed to your dogs or other animals.

 

[wyoDreamer]

BC, thank you for your observations.
It is all good advice and will be filed away in my brain for future reference.
It is wonderful to have such a diverse group of advisors available on this website!