What is this on my butchered chicken?

[TJAnonymous]

We butchered 7 roosters last night. One of them had these small, beige/yellowish granules all over in the clear goo covering his muscles. It was all over the legs and breast... But not in the actual muscle meat itself. Just the clear covering. Has anyone ever seen this before? It does wash off if you clear the goo. None of the other birds had this, btw... And they were all penned together.

@Eggcessive
@Wyorp Rock
@azygous

 

[Eggcessive]

I don’t butcher, so I have never seen that. Hopefully others will offer help.

 

[azygous]

I don't butcher, either, but those look like fat deposits.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

@Molpet

 

[Molpet]

Clear goo is fasica or connective tissue. I haven't noticed the yellow granulars, but mine have lots of fat in the same spots. I think that's the beginning of fat

 

[Molpet]

Most of my pictures are of plucked but I think there's a small spot lower right.
This pic was taken of the crooked keel
ETA

 

[NatJ]

We butchered 7 roosters last night. One of them had these small, beige/yellowish granules all over in the clear goo covering his muscles. It was all over the legs and breast... But not in the actual muscle meat itself. Just the clear covering. Has anyone ever seen this before? It does wash off if you clear the goo. None of the other birds had this, btw... And they were all penned together.

View attachment 4144347

@Eggcessive
@Wyorp Rock
@azygous

Just to check the obvious: is there any chance the things got on the chicken after you skinned it? Bits of blowing dust, or spilled feed, or something?

That has happened to me before, and the little bits of stuff can stick on, but come off with water and a little bit of rubbing. I'm pretty sure that's what happened with the black hairy bits in your photo, so that would be my first guess for the little pale bits as well, unless you are sure that was not the case.

 

[TJAnonymous]

Thanks to everyone for posting... I reached out to the vet at the Poultry Department at the University of Arkansas. I'm canning this meat so I was concerned about potential parasites or something like that. This is the response from the poultry vet -

Those spots have the appearance of an inflammatory response.
The condition is referred to as IP.
Those yellow-white spots are coagulations of inflammatory cells.
Birds do not form abscesses like we see in mammals . In addition, their skin is loosely attached which allows for movement of inflammation.
The high body temperature also causes the inflammation to coagulate into lumps similar to dried cheese.
Those can be trimmed off and the underlying meat is considered okay but most people prefer to just condemn the meat as unfit for human consumption since it is difficult to determine if all the inflammation has been successfully removed.

The bird most likely has an injury where the IP developed and migrated under the skin.

------

It is very possible... The reason I chose to cull roosters last night is because one or more of them was attacking the others. It's a bachelor pen. No hens but I did have 8 week old cockerels in there and one was nearly killed. Tore the back of its head open and ripped off all the feathers entirely from his back. Those chicks have been in there for weeks with no problem. I suspected it was one of the younger roos around 7 or 8 months old causing the ruckus. Anyway, I know the rooster with this granulation was being bullied by some of the others.

 

[Molpet]

When my boys get fighting they usually have green and purple bruising on skin and sometimes meat.

 

[TJAnonymous]

When my boys get fighting they usually have green and purple bruising on skin and sometimes meat.

I didn't see any obvious wounds... But I do know that this particular roo was getting bullied by several other roos just last week. He was missing a lot of feathers on the back of his neck but no wounds that I saw so . I can only assume that he fought with one of the other roos and that's likely the source of the unknown injury.