# Is this my imagination, or do mass produced chickens smell of ammonia



## oregonyeti (Jun 16, 2007)

I realize this seems off the wall, but I'm serious. I bought cheap chicken and boiled it with potatoes and spices. It smells a bit like the chicken "factory" I visited once. It was a chicken farm where the smell of ammonia just about knocked me over when the door to this place was opened. I could go on with that story but I won't.

Do you think it's just my imagination? I honestly wasn't looking for a connection. After all, I bought this chicken even though I've seen and smelled how they were raised. But I could swear there's something in the chicken that isn't so good . . .


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## dc sunshine (Feb 26, 2007)

When something smells of ammonia - its off, past its use by date, not properly processed or stored, to me. When I've kept chicken or fish a bit too long and it smells like that - I bin it. Even though the fish may have cost way too much, or I was looking forward to a chicken curry dinner, once it has that smell, it's out of here.

It's an instinctive thing to me. That smell means don't go near it.

The smell at the factory was most probably the smell of their droppings, to be polite. That's why the overcrowded fowl get hock burn, they have nowhere to get off the floor which is covered in....well...you know. Not a nice life for them.

I can't afford to buy organic/free range birds, but can't say I've noticed the factory fowls smelling of ammonia. If it does - toss it. Have the rice and veg instead


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## splodge (Feb 25, 2009)

yea I read about 'hock burns' and once you know, you start looking out for them and its dificult to buy the 'cheap' chicken in supermarkets.

What is a 'hock burn' ? Well, because these chickens are bred to grow so fast, their legs can't keep up with the weight of their bodies, so they fall over permanently onto their knees, which get burned in the acidity of their own excretion on the floor (which by the way is never cleaned until the chickens are slaughtered - 42 days from egg to slaughter).

We as humans have effectively cross-bred an animal so that it will genetically harm itself, and then put it in a situation where that harm is worsened. yea, go for free range or organic when you can!


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## chrislehrer (Oct 9, 2008)

It's funny, I have a different sense of chicken smells.

Old chicken has a sickly-sweet smell that I believe has to do with butyric (sp?) acid. I first made the connection when I worked at a hospital and suddenly had a powerful negative reaction to a smell... that turned out to be an exhaust from the morgue. My doctor friends told me, "yup, that's the smell of death, and that really is an instinctive revulsion." Old meat has a trace of that smell.

But the ammoniac thing -- I have only smelled that with Purdue chickens. I have no idea what it is, but something in me believes that those chickens are fed their own excrement, and it permeates their flesh. True? I have no idea and certainly no facts. But it's one of a couple of reasons I never, ever buy Purdue.


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## ed buchanan (May 29, 2006)

When meat plants used to be inspected by the FDA and bad meat or chickens were found, the inspector poured amonia on it in order for it not to be able to sell. I hope you didnt get any of this .


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## chrislehrer (Oct 9, 2008)

OK, thanks a lot Ed, now Yeti and I are going to barf.


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## oregonyeti (Jun 16, 2007)

That chicken is gone, dumped . . . .&*&^[email protected]#$^%&


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## ed buchanan (May 29, 2006)

Chris ! Just think how the chicken felt with all that amonia poured over him!!!!!!


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## agatalaura (Apr 17, 2013)

there once were neighborhood poultry markets that kept 20-30 live pullets, roasters, boilers, hens and freshly laid eggs, plus a rooster or two in stacked cages which were cleaned daily, with access to an enclosed outdoor yard for their recreation as well as for the customer to choose their birds from;; the poultry was slughtered on demand-onsite, within sight of the paying customer; these markets existed in many large metropolitan areas as well as in lesser cities and towns across the land-maybe, could be that food sourcers and purveyors need to restore some of that wayof supplyng food to ordinaryeveryday customers. HOCK BURNS!! Yuck! now that I know what all this is about....


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## maryb (Mar 21, 2008)

Could be they are giving them an ammonia dip to offset dirty processing practices.


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