Chicken feed, tainted pet food linked

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Nearly 40 poultry farms in Indiana gave chickens feed contaminated with wheat gluten imported from China that has been linked to poisoned pet food, the government said Tuesday.

About 30 broiler poultry farms and eight breeder poultry farms received the contaminated feed in early February and fed it to chickens shortly thereafter, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The wheat gluten has been found to contain melamine and related compounds, a protein substitute that has been linked to animal deaths and sickness.

Though the FDA and USDA believe it unlikely that anyone who ate the chicken in question will become ill, the government will not give its seal of approval to any products derived from animals that ate the contaminated feed. It is offering to pay farmers who euthanize poultry that ate the bad feed.

The FDA and USDA also said they will not recall any of the chicken products from the 38 farms. The agencies are following the same procedures as when they discovered recently that swine on farms in several states also ate feed found to be contaminated with wheat gluten.

Breeders that were fed the contaminated product are under voluntary hold by their owners.

The FDA did not indicate which brands might be affected by the latest revelations. Leaders in the industry include Tyson Foods (Charts, Fortune 500), Pilgrim's Pride Corp. (Charts, Fortune 500) and Smithfield Foods (Charts, Fortune 500).

The FDA recently said it will for the first time test ingredients imported for use in the human food supply in connection with the nationwide pet food recall that has killed, by some estimates, thousands of pets.

The FDA has officially tallied 16 animal deaths related to the wheat gluten-pet food recall, but other organizations have put the death toll in the thousands. More than 100 brands of pet food have been recalled.