Water Belly - huge belly - Hen died and I think another has it

I just had a hen die in my arms. I thought it was something I could help with a warm bath to soak her backside and she was doing fine until I started carrying her. Both times I put her in my arms seems like she did worse - almost like the liquid in her made her drown from the inside. After she died, I cut her oven from the vent up and clear yellow liquid was everywhere which now what I read makes me think it is water belly - liver and heart issues.!?!

So no that makes me wonder if anything to prevent or watch out for? Seems like she was slowing down on the food which I did not realize how much cause her crop had nothing in it. I am sure she starved too - hindsight is 20/20!

Any suggestions for helping this not get so far along in the future? Maybe I now have a heightened sense for this problem but I am feeling all the hens undersides when roosting to make sure not bloated. I have one that is sort of large, but eating so I think she is just bigger. Then other hens are way smaller.

Any suggestions? Thanks!

I had a hen like that and sent her to the state lab. The diagnosis was cancer.

So your water belly hen had cancer? could you/they see anything inside her like tumors?

Is this normal hen insides? Should a hen have this large of collection of eggs in her?

That looks like too many

This is a more normal sequence, along with lots of tiny ones.

The eggs were in a clump all attached together; not loose. I have heard that hens have numerous eggs all in different stages of development but was not sure if that meant all clumped together or in a line spread out . . . maybe this was the source of her issue and maybe cancer? So maybe not water belly. maybe the water just collected from an infection however. It was clear water and not cloudy so made me confused.

I don't think my bird was laying eggs when she got cancer.
The eggs in the picture are from a meat bird I let get too old before I butchered her.
They are in a clump in the ovary. But the picture shows all the developing ovum, all the rest were minute. Looks like yours started developing but not dropping into the infundibulum.

Cereal said:

Is this normal hen insides? Should a hen have this large of collection of eggs in her?

Click to expand...

Those aren't eggs, it's a type of cancer I think. -Kathy

Or maybe cysts... Either way, they aren't normal.

-Kathy

I think it's this:
Pretty sure it's called "cystadenocarcinomas"





above pictures are from here
www.cvm.ncsu.edu/dphp/phm/documents/AVMA2005.pdf