Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

Hello all. I took some birds in for processing yesterday and 1 young one [3 months] was rejected due to septicemia. From my limited on-line understanding, this is due to an infection? From my preliminary search this is more common in large scale farming practices. Has anyone else had this happen? Is there something I have been missing?

Sometimes a bumble foot infection will become systemic instead of staying localized at point of entry. It's rare, but it happens, usually in young birds with immune systems not fully developed, or older birds with compromised immune systems, like the very old or the already sick. I doubt there's anything you missed or could have done differently, unless it's more than one bird. There always seems to be one gimpy bird in every batch! If it happens again, you'd look for ways they might be getting injured-- piece of wire sticking up out of the floor, whether they're pecking each other, that sort of thing. It only takes a tiny break in the skin to start a bird down the road to sepsis, luckily most are able to fight infection off.