Coles customer ridiculed after claiming live insects were crawling on his chicken drumsticks – but here’s the innocent explanation for what he saw

A mystery shopper has come under fire online after he claimed ‘parasites’ were crawling into a packet of chicken drumsticks he bought at a major supermarket chain.

The customer bought the pack of Coles brand chicken sticks from one of the supermarket’s Brisbane stores on Sunday.

He noticed that one of the sticks inside the unopened food package had several small pores protruding from the top of the chicken’s leg.

Disturbed by the unusual feature, the man uploaded a post to reddit including a video of his shocking discovery in an attempt to find out what the small objects were.

‘What are these?’ the post was under the title.

‘Sorry for the obligatory anti-Coles post but wtf is wrong here? We’ll take them to get a refund no matter what, but what are these and how bad could it have been?’ the man wrote.

‘We buy drumsticks for our dogs’ food. Bought in Brisbane so be careful if you bought any chickens nearby I guess.’

The man goes on to state in the post that he saw the black objects, like needles, moving.

“When my stepmother brought it to me, I definitely saw one of them fall on the other side by itself,” he wrote.

“Both my parents saw it move in front of me.”

The video shows the chicken leg with the small black objects inside the unopened package sitting on a kitchen bench in the man’s home.

He then proceeds to stab the drumstick with his finger.

“It was moving earlier,” he says.

“It’s really gross.”

The man then appears to ask someone else nearby if he should continue hitting the object in an attempt to see if the objects might be a small insect or bug.

“Do you think I could… wrap it in plastic?” he asks.

A woman is then seen stabbing a chicken leg with her finger.

A concerned shopper noticed some small pores (pictured) on a chicken leg inside a pack of Coles brand chicken sticks he bought recently and uploaded a post online in an attempt to find out what they were

“Yeah, what the hell is that?” replies the man.

Despite the man’s concerns, several users who commented on the post pointed out that the objects were chicken feathers.

“It’s just unplucked feathers lol,” one person replied.

“This was once a black hen. In skin-on chickens, feather stubs are often left.’

“I think they are black feathers that have not been fully plucked. Nothing to worry about, in my opinion, and I’ll still cook them,” wrote another.

However, other users criticized the man’s reaction to the feathers, telling him there was nothing wrong with the chicken.

‘It’s just feathers. Don’t waste food by returning it. Get the bloody things out!’ said one user.

“Have you never seen a chicken before?” wrote another.

‘They are feathers… Don’t put them back. Just remove them. But seriously, if you can’t handle the fact that chickens used to have feathers and are comfortable seeing only ‘meat’ as sold by big corporations, you need to do some research.’

The man’s reaction was criticized by netizens who told him the objects (pictured) were unplucked chicken feathers

The buyer responded to the disparaging comments by saying that he was leaving the post as he was unable to find information about unplucked chicken feathers online.

‘So despite the choke, I’m not going to delete this post. Maybe some other crazy person in 7 years will see this, call me an idiot with a laugh, and calm down and rip the damn thing off,” he said.

A spokesperson from Coles told Daily Mail Australia in a statement that the small objects are feathers from a chicken.

“We can confirm that the black items pictured are the base of the feathers. Our suppliers take great care when processing poultry and our practice generally ensures that feathers are removed during processing,” the spokesperson said.

‘This item in question should have been rated at this time. We apologize for the inconvenience caused.’

“Food safety is paramount at Coles. This is an isolated case and we are investigating with our supplier.