teal meat
 

while cleaning up some teal this afternoon, I noticed some white looking things on the breast meat of one of the ducks. Is this a kind of worm that they can get.

Parasites? I usually throw them away.

Look like rice pellets? i chunk dem

It's called rice breast. Supposed to be harmless if you cook the meat. I generally throw em out as well.

There's a joke waiting to happen here....

Fat
 

More than likely just pockets of fat. Talked to a biologist once about this and he told me he would take any of those "worm-filled" ducks I didn't want.

It's called sarcocystocis or in ducks "rice breast disease". It's caused by a protozoan parasite. They are destroyed by cooking and you don't see them in cooked ducks. All the same, if I see them, I normally don't eat them. see http://www.unbc.ca/nlui/wildlife_dis...arcocystis.htm I attempt to remove all the spaghetti worms from trout and reds that I see. There's just something about eating parasites.

cool...learned a little more today!

From what an ole coonass told me, the rice breast is from the duck sitting in shallow water for a good bit of time. Anybody know?

• The life cycle of Sarcocystis requires two hosts: an intermediate host (waterfowl) for the asexual component and a definitive host (mammalian carnivore) for the sexual stage.
• Birds ingest water contaminated with the feces of carnivores that contain the eggs of Sarcocystis. Eggs may persist in the environment for extended periods of time.
• The parasite develops in the intestines of the bird, and then enter the bloodstream and further infect cells of blood vessels.
• The parasite is then carried by the blood to voluntary muscles where the characteristic, elongated cysts are produced. From ingestion of eggs to the formation of cysts takes several months.
• When a carnivore ingests infected muscle tissue from a bird, the life-cycle is completed. The parasite reaches maturity in the intestines of the carnivore and repeats the cycle by producing eggs.