Safe to eat?

[RiddleMe]

I dispatched a young OE rooster today, earlier than planned but he had injured himself pretty significantly. Short story he was trapped in a small space for anywhere up to 14 hours (that's been fixed) and in his struggles created some open wounds and covered himself in feces. Due to the combination of open skin and poop I decided to be safe and dispatch but not process. But I'm wondering if there would have been a safe way to salvage the meat? I guess I could have processed, cooked and fed back to the chickens...

 

[bargain]

I think you made the correct decision to NOT process in this case. Although cooking would kill all germs at a certain level, if you had a scratch on your own skin, you could have developed problems has you come in contact with some of the feces accidentally. Also from a perspective of meat to be garnered from an OE, it would have been a minimal of meat for all the plucking, picking, cleaning and then the cost of cooking it and clean up of the utensils, preparing knives, pot/pan, I would say it would have been not worth it. We believe in not being wasteful, but my husband has taught me well the "overall" effects on the pocket book as well! Hope this helps.

 

[delisha]

If this happens again, after you cull the inured bird, you can process efficiently with out all of the plucking, boiling, and mess associated with normal process. You stand on the wings with your feet wedged tight to the body. Take a leg in each hand and slowly pull. What you pull off is discarded. It will be the viscera, head, skin, feathers etc. You are left with wings, back and breasts.you can cut the wings off and cook the meat. It will be skinless so cooking methods are different.

 

[RiddleMe]

I think you made the correct decision to NOT process in this case.  Although cooking would kill all germs at a certain level, if you had a scratch  on your own skin, you could have developed problems has you come in contact with some of the feces accidentally.   Also from a perspective of meat to be garnered from an OE, it would have been a minimal of meat for all the plucking, picking, cleaning and then the cost of cooking it and clean up of the utensils, preparing knives, pot/pan, I would say it would have been not worth it.  We believe in not being wasteful, but my husband has taught me well the "overall" effects on the pocket book as well!    Hope this helps.
 

Thanks bargain, I must admit the decision was easier after just feeling his overall weight and structure, I didnt feel so wasteful when I realized there just wasn't much there. Didn't even think about scratches on me, good point, i always have a few just from maintaining the property.

 

[RiddleMe]

If this happens again, after you cull the inured bird, you can process efficiently with out all of the plucking, boiling, and mess associated with normal process. You stand on the wings with your feet wedged tight to the body. Take a leg in each hand and slowly pull. What you pull off is discarded. It will be the viscera, head, skin,  feathers etc. You are left with wings, back and breasts.you can cut the wings off and cook the meat. It will be skinless so cooking methods are different.

Interesting, took me a few readings to visualize, but I may try it with the three OE cockerels still in grow-out. I just keep feeding them hoping they'll put on a little more meat to be worth the work, this may shorten that wait.

 

[cutechick2010]

If this happens again, after you cull the inured bird, you can process efficiently with out all of the plucking, boiling, and mess associated with normal process. You stand on the wings with your feet wedged tight to the body. Take a leg in each hand and slowly pull. What you pull off is discarded. It will be the viscera, head, skin, feathers etc. You are left with wings, back and breasts.you can cut the wings off and cook the meat. It will be skinless so cooking methods are different.

This is interesting. I wonder if I am brave enough to try this next time, LOL. I always skin my birds rather than plucking, but my gosh would this method make it faster and easier. I am not sure if I would be strong enough to do this with a 13 pound rooster though.