Howdy!

Hope everyone had a great opener. I finally managed to get a limit, once Saturday and then another on Monday, and on public land through TPW. Anyway, I was cleaning my birds Monday morning and had one (think it was a white wing) that had worms in it's body cavity. There were about three or four that I could see and were just in the cavity, not embedded in organs or meat or anything. They were around 2 inches long, mostly white colored with a slightly yellow tinge, and about 1mm thick. The bird and everything about it looked normal other than the parasites inside. I tried looking them up on the internet, but couldn't find info to help me identify them or if they could be a health issue to humans if ingested. I did find a few website geared towards caring for birds, such as for zoos or pet owners, but they just suggested there are a number of species of worms that infect pigeons and doves and how to treat for them. Couldn't find anything geared towards outdoorsman and what is safe or unsafe to consume if you do come across this type of situation.

So, have any of you found worms or parasites in your birds? What did you do with the meat/bird if you did? Anyone on here know what the worms I described might be or know a resource that could help me identify them and get more info?

I couldn't bring myself to throw the meat away and waste it since the worms didn't appear to be in the meat itself. I froze it and will wait a week or two before cooking and will cook the meat WELL. Hopefully nothing survives the combined freezing/cooking process and I'm just being paranoid about it.

Never found/ noticed any, should cook up and eat just fine. Wouldn’t surprise if a lot of them have worms during warm weather like many other animals.

I’ve never found worms in a dove. I’ve never really looked in the stomach just what fell out of the craw. I would probably toss the bird. Every bass I fillet on Amistad has worms in their stomach. That never seems to bother me though.

Yeah, most fish have some form of parasite and often can find numerous species on a single fish. But, the worms I saw in the dove were not in the stomach, but freely moving around in the body cavity. One or two were near the intestines and another one or two near the heart/lungs.

Won't toss the bird now because it is breasted out, deboned, and mixed with 14 other birds. Plus, I'd hope if there were a known health threat there would be a bit more info readily available.

I know you aren't looking for information specifically on Trichinosis but the following article has some good information on parasites in wild game. The website is also a good source of information for handling and cooking wild game.



Trichinosis in Wild Game

mark the birds with the worms when you cook them and serve them to your guests.

they say if you eat the worm you'll see visions.