Old Breast Wound

[Jawilor]

I just cleaned a rooster I shot yesterday and noticed a hard lump on one of the breast halves. I cut it open and out popped the lump of what I can only assume were old feathers and rotten flesh. It smelled horrible but was contained to that one area. Has anyone seen anything like this? The rest of the breast was fine.
The 1st pic shows the area where it was removed, and the 2nd pic is the actual mass.

 

[Weimdogman]

Seen it more then once

 

[Wind River]

Localized abscess. Not uncommon to find while cleaning birds. I have shot very strong flying birds with completely gangrenous breasts, nasty and foul. It would make a coyote puke.

 

[Chestle]

Anything in the lump? Piece of shot?

Agree, this is not unheard of.

 

[Jawilor]

Anything in the lump? Piece of shot?

Agree, this is not unheard of.

I didn't dissect it, but it was all very spongy.

 

[A5 Sweet 16]

See it now & then, but the abscess isn't typically as big as yours. I just cut them out & eat the rest. So far so good.

 

[airmedic1]

I shot one once that had a broken stick, about a quarter inch in diameter in its breast. It flew well but it smelled bad so we threw it away.

 

[Jawilor]

I cleaned another bird from Saturday that had a similar, but smaller abscess. It looked like it took a single pellet in the lower breast. The old wound was about an inch long and had some old feathers in it. The thing smelled as bad as the one in the other bird.

 

[Chestle]

As the season goes on there's always more birds that have had previous hunter encounters and escaped with (as they said in the old movies)....

just a flesh wound.