Safe to eat??

[chickensinmaine]

Hi all,
This is my first season with meat birds and I'm on my second batch now. I've lost one in each batch but it seems like that normal in looking at BYC. I found one bird (Cornish X) to be a bit sluggish last night and this morning was clearly not well. I immediately processed the bird as normal. When I opened the body cavity there was a lot of yellowish liquid and the liver was not normal(lumpy and discolored is the best way I can describe it). Other than these rather alarming things the rest of the intestines and the bird seemed totally normal.
1. Is it safe to eat? I really hate to waste it.
2. Is it something that the other birds may end up with?
3. Is there any way to avoid things like this or is just the way it goes with the Cornish X?

I hope to try some freedom rangers in the future, any opinions on that?
Thanks!

 

[PotterWatch]

What you saw was the progression of heart failure or "flip". With cornish, fluid in the body cavity is almost always attributed to heart failure. Ascites (the fluid you saw), can also be a sign of infection; but with cornish it is usually flip. For my own personal use, I will still eat a cornish x that has ascites, but I will not eat a dual-purpose or older layer with it simply because the cause is more likely to be infection in breeds other than the cornish x.

Flip in cornish x can be minimized by feed restriction and making certain they never run out of water, though some are just more prone to it.

 

[chickensinmaine]

Thanks!

 

[4-H chicken mom]

We just butchered two that were no longer eating and they had the same fluid build up. We smoked it a couple days later and boy was it great.

 

[wsmoak]

I hope to try some freedom rangers in the future, any opinions on that?

My first meat bird adventure was this spring with 26 Freedom Rangers. I had zero losses and plan to get them again. (Or possibly S&G Red Rangers, since the hatchery is much closer.)

-Wendy

 

[birdman1960]

I had one yesterday, 5 1/2 weeks old, was kinda sluggish, the comb was really dark red, I was thinking about processing it, but decided against it, this morning, dead as a door nail.....not sure if that is a sign of heart failure or not, also lost one earlier in the week...same thing, really dark red comb....will process at 8 weeks...I take the feed out of the tractor every evening, and put back in the morning, they never run out of fresh water...maybe just the CX....

 

[chickensinmaine]

I just got my first batch of Freedom Rangers. They look great, I'm really excited to see how they go.