Do older dead carcasses increase risk of food poisoning?

[jpinard]

Because my colonists are always in a time bind I often like to scan the map to see if there are freshly killed animals out there.  If they've been dead less than a day I'll go pick them up, butcher them, and make them into fine meals.  Am I safe doing this if they're older than a day old?  Even like a week?

Thanks for answering all my dumb questions!

[stu89pid]

I think food poisoning has to do with your cooks skill.

My understanding is that as long as the carcass isn't rotten, it shouldn't matter. Hopefully someone can confirm.

[hwfanatic]

It's in the wiki, and there are tests on YouTube that confirm this - chance to poison a meal depends on the skill of the cook and cleanliness of the room the said meal is prepared in. These values can be inspected using the in-game tools.

The state of the carcass doesn't affect the meat produced, and the state of meat doesn't affect the meal produced. It's either good to be used, or not. 

[SpaceDorf]

The answer is no, if you butcher them, as long as the corpse is good it gets butchered.

Also the answer is yes.
Pets eating older or rotting carcasses get food poisoning on regular basis.
Bear Vomit Everywhere !!

[Mikhail Reign]

Also the answer is yes.
Pets eating older or rotting carcasses get food poisoning on regular basis.
Bear Vomit Everywhere !!

Should they tho? I mean isn't that what animals do best? Eat shit you or I would die eating, and do it with a smile?

Like I feel like bears, for example, would be one of those animals which has a cast iron stomach. I've seen a dog eat the arse out of a long dead sheep and he seemed more then happy......

[SpaceDorf]

I think thats where the destinction between predators, omnivors and carrion eaters lies.
What they are willing and able to eat. And I think they should get sick, its only natural and even in game it is just to convinient to feed the rotten bodies of your enemies to the dogs without a penalty.

My guess is the rotten bodies only have a chance to give the animals food poisoning,
which increases the older the bodies get. The same goes with bad kibble or prepared meals.

[eadras]

Animals that died from infection or toxic fallout certainly seem to increase net food poisoning by a substantial amount.  I'd avoid using those.  Age of corpse certainly does not affect food poisoning chance.  I regularly store whole corpses in my freezer in the fall, to be butchered through the winter as needed, because large corpses take up so much less space than their resulting meat yield.

[jpinard]

Excellent.  Thanks for the in depth info!

[Mikhail Reign]

<snip>

Wait.... So you don't pile all your bodies in a room with pigs whos only source of food is bodies - fallen raiders or the pigs that starved? Its the best way to get rid of bodies.

[SpaceDorf]

<snip>

Noooooo .. I certainly don't do that 

Who would do such a abominable thing ?

Bears are way better then pigs.

But in my current fortress colony I don't have a tamer yet, nor could I buy some nice pets,
so I had to line the path all those raiders come from with graves.