# Ill Turkey - What's in the meat?!?!?!?!?



## OSXer (Jul 12, 2005)

So I didn't have the time to post this promptly, but I took a jake last week (meat hunter here :lol and everything was going awesome. He was one of four who all looked alike, excluding one having a slightly longer beard, but besides that they were all nearly equal.

Took it home, breasted it out, .... first breast looked great. Legs appeared find as well. One breast however had hard green stuff all over the lower half. Now, I head shot that turkey with a tightly patterned scatter gun, not to mention that this breast would have been the one facing me, so I definately didn't splatter any inerds against it. There were no holes in the breast either

This green stuff was in clumps, was hard, and had a rough texture. I proceed to just cut off the lower half, but discovered more green stuff within the breast as well. At this point I just started slicing it up to see where the green areas were and weren't - about 2/3s of the breast was ruined. 

Can someone tell me what this is? Is there somewhere I should take this breast to have it checked out? I am guessing it's not safe to eat and tempted to throw the entire bird out at this point. My familly thinks I should. It's quite sad since the dinner afterward is my favorite part of harvesting a turkey. :sad: 

FWIW, I currently have the breast on ice in case I should be sending it somewhere to get checked out.

FWIW also, I've harvested birds in the same area I took this one years past and never encountered, nor heard about other hunters encountering, what I encountered within this one.


----------



## NATTY BUMPO (May 12, 2001)

Pretty hard to tell anything from the description. But it sounds like an infection of some kind- bacterial, fungal, who knows?? 

See any shot in there ??- lots of wounded, body shot turkeys dragging around the woods right about now. We found a dead jake in the woods last year- he had a broken wing and had gotten away only to die later. The color green usually indicates puss. I'd throw it out or call the DNR to see if they would want to examine it.

NB


----------



## NEMichsportsman (Jul 3, 2001)

Sorry about your crappy luck!


----------



## Sprytle (Jan 8, 2005)

Your a lucky man!!!!! Wild turkey breast with mint sauce!! 
Saw it on Emeril once....awesome meal!!!!:lol::lol:

Sorry... I mean....Thats too bad.
How did the other side look??


----------



## Linda G. (Mar 28, 2002)

Sounds like someone took a pot shot at him sometime during the winter, as gangrene, which is what you're dealing with, takes a while to really develop. Sounds like some old birdshot or rabbit shot wounds with gangrene over it. I've been told that cooked it won't hurt you at all, but I've seen this before in a number of birds, and I wasn't real keen on eating it, either. 

Oddly, I'll bet he was recovering from this, if he was traveling with other birds and was being accepted by the flock. They're really tough birds, you wouldn't believe all the things that can happen to them that they can get over and go on to have a normal, reproductive life. 

I once had a tom with a twisted, curlycue middle toenail, really interesting. Opened him up, and on the other leg I found several pellets and gangrene all through that leg. He was, to all appearances, fine. Gobbling and having no trouble getting around till he ran into me. 

Another time, I shot a bearded hen during the fall season, opened her up, and found a piece of wood, about an inch thick and two inches long, completely inbedded in her breast. The flesh had healed completely around it. 

Also had a buddy that shot a nice tom, and upon opening him up, was horrified to find him FULL of maggots-that tom was literally being eaten alive from the inside out. Nobody tried to eat him, either, for that matter, the whole bird got tossed. That bird seemed fine, too. 

They're tough.


----------



## SgtSabre (May 15, 2004)

It's probably just guacamole


----------



## OSXer (Jul 12, 2005)

I'll see what I can do to get some pictures posted up.

I was kind of thinking that it was the result of a pot shot on the turkey in the past year, but I never did find any pellets in it. There are a number of tresspassers or people who poach in the section this property is on/near, so I wouldn't be to surprised to hear it was peppered with bird shot out of season. :rant: 

Will gangrene affect the areas other than just what it appears around?


----------

