This batch of dual purpose tastes horrid! Help?

[DianeS]

I have processed quite a few batches of dual purpose chickens before, and never had any taste bad. This batch is horrible! The smell when it is cooking, and the taste when it's done, is reminiscent of poop - it's that bad. It's not the "spoiled chicken" smell and taste, I've smelled that when I've left chicken in the fridge too long. This is a very specific poop smell.

I didn't do anything different with this group. It was 10 hens, several breeds, laying age but mostly egg-eaters, that had been raised from chicks on organic feed. They were free on Craigslist because of the egg-eating, but I saw their living conditions and they were good. The feed bags were really organic ones, their run was probably 300 sq feet, and they were the healthiest-looking bunch of chickens I'd seen in a while (shiny feathers, no parasites, etc).

I kept them for 8 days in my normal conditions to weed out the ones that did not eat eggs, butchered the others the same as normal. Quickly, sanitary conditions, skinning them and keeping only the breasts and legs, the meat spent one overnight in an ice cooler full of ice water, and then individually frozen in the freezer.

I've tried several pieces from different packages so far, thinking maybe it was just one bird that tasted awful - but nope, it's all of them.

Any idea what happened? This whole batch will be dog food now, and I'd hate to lose any more next time.

 

[KickinRocks]

Since they all spent the night in the same bath, I wonder if they were contaminated there. I've heard that ice makers can have some bacterial growth. Did you buy the ice that went into the cooler or did you freeze your own?

 

[Bossroo]

What are the ingredients in the "organic feed" and/ or housing/ run floor/ soil environmental conditions as well as former owner's husbandry practices of feeding leftover scraps or supplements ( fish meal, etc.) ???

 

[jasonm11]

call the person you got them from and find out if they gave them any meds and or herbs within a week or two of selling to you.

 

[DianeS]

I made the ice myself. Most of it was frozen in bottles that I reuse. The bottles go through the dishwasher, are filled with water, closed, and frozen. Then dropped into the cooler of water.

Now that I'm thinking about the cooler, I can't remember if I scrubbed it the last time I used it. (I processed chickens a week earlier.) I know it looked clean, it didn't smell bad... I know I rinsed it right away after I used it last time, but I can't remember if I scrubbed it. Might be my cause right there. EW! That's incredibly gross if I did forget.

But just in case it wasn't - Bossroo, I don't know the ingredients. All I did was a quick eyeball of the feed bags to see if I were dealing with a truthful or lying seller. The label said "organic" so I stopped looking at them. I don't even remember the brand, just that it was one I did not immediately recognize. The coop was a large shed with painted wood walls and floor. Shavings on the floor, hay in nestboxes. Very little poop around. The run was dirt, part of a field but no greens left inside the run. I don't know if they fed scraps/suppliments or not, I did not ask. But if there is one that might have been given that can cause this type of smell and taste in the food, please let me know what!

 

[yinepu]

sounds like they were fed something "off".. like fish scraps or fish meal.. something different than a regular type of feed

 

[Oregon Blues]

I don't know what could be in feed to make the meat taste like poop. You can get an onion taste from wild onions and maybe a fish taste from too much fish. But I don't think that even feeding them straight poop would make them taste like poop. decades ago, there was chicken poop included in chicken mash. It's nitrogen and tests out as protein. That didn't make eggs or meat taste like poop.

(Had a cousin proudly share home baked bread made with chicken mash. Insisted it was just ground grain. Bletch. She couldn't understand why I wouldn't eat it.)

Were you careful to remove the gall bladders and not nick the gallbladders? That's not poop flavored, anyway, that's really bitter.

How about the oil gland on the tail. Some of those have a strange taste. I wouldn't call it poop, but it can be musty.

Seriously, you wouldn't think that laying hens would have been fed anything to taint the taste because it would ruin the eggs worse than the meat.

 

[homesteadapps]

If you know the meat is good then teriyaki marinade or stir fry will hide the off flavor.

My guess would be something in the feed, but it's hard to say. Does the raw meat smell right?

 

[greenfamilyfarms]

Were you careful when removing the gall bladder from the liver? If it is punctured during processing, it can give meat an off flavor.

 

[farmer9989]

Mabe something in the water. Thats what my dad always said .