Hen passed a very large fluid filled sac

Hi I had a hen I noticed this morning with a prolasped vent. I brought inside the house, washed the area and applied some lubricant while feeling for an egg/pushing the prolapse back. She kept pushing it out and after a minute or so passed a very large fluid filled sac that looked like a water balloon. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture before I popped it to see what was inside. It appeared to be a very watery fluid. The sac itself appeared clear with what looked like blood vessels on the surface of the sack. The sack was oval shaped about 2" X 4" which seemed fairly large to pass through such a small vent but it was water filled so it was pliable.

Any ideas on what this could be............I have seen ascites but it was a completely unattached sac that was passed.

It was the Black Australorp seen in my avatar.


Thank you.

petrus said:

Hi I had a hen I noticed this morning with a prolasped vent. I brought inside the house, washed the area and applied some lubricant while feeling for an egg/pushing the vent back. She kept pushing it out and passed a very large fluid filled sac that looked like a water balloon. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture before I popped it to see what was inside. It appeared to be a very watery fluid. The sac itself appeared clear with what looked like blood vessels on the surface of the sack.

Any ideas on what this could be............I have seen ascites but it was a completely unattached sac that was passed.

Thank you.

Click to expand...

@petrus , welcome to BYC! Did it look like any of the sacks in this thread:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1064118/cystadenocarcinomas-in-laying-hens-graphic-pictures

Warning, that thread contains graphic necropsy pictures!

-Kathy

Could it have been a shell-less egg? Shell-less eggs can be more difficult to pass, and cause a hen to strain to the point of prolapsing. New layers, and hens that are just resuming production after their winter break are prone to laying shell-less eggs.

Hi Kathy..............yes the sac looked exactly like those in the picture except it was just one giant sac about 2" X 4"

She looks fine at the moment. Do you have any additional thoughts.............thank you.

BTW this hen if probably about 10 months old.

Hi June I thought the same except that it was filled with water and had what appeared to be blood vessels on the surface of the membrane.

petrus said:

Hi Kathy..............yes the sac looked exactly like those in the picture except it was just one giant sac about 2" X 4"

She looks fine at the moment. Do you have any additional thoughts.............thank you.

Click to expand...

Wow, that's huge! I'll send an email to a pathologist and ask him if he's ever seen one that big. How old is she?

-Kathy

Kathy.................about 10 months old. I should have saved and taken a picture but of course I was stressed out and wasn't thinking.

petrus said:

Kathy.................about 10 months old. I should have saved and taken a picture but of course I was stressed out and wasn't thinking.

Click to expand...

Not positive, but I think she's too young for it to be cystadenocarcinomas. Maybe we can get @speckledhen to comment.

-Kathy

I got the msg from Kathy''s mention of my name. I think it was probably an egg membrane (well, duh, right?). The fluid, well, hard to say why it was inside the membrane with nothing else, but hens have all sorts of glitches in their reproductive systems. I've had hens lay normal eggs which were completely encased by tissue on the outside of the egg. Crazy what happens sometimes.

Nothing you can do about it other than be sure her nutrition is up to par and hope it isn't a sign of something worse. Excess fluid in the body of a hen, no matter where it is, can be a sign of liver or heart failure, egg yolk peritonitis, internal laying, reproductive cancer or many other issues, but don't worry unless you see signs of something else going on. I'd go with it just being a glitch in lieu of other symptoms.

Thanks everyone for the help.

I had to older hens pass away from a respiratory illness about 2 weeks apart with the last one passing about 1 week ago. I isolated them as soon as I noticed they didn't look right upon my daily inspection. Unfortunately I was not able to help them and each passed in about 24 hours. I noticed this on a thread here and it seems to add up.

Any thoughts on it and looking forward on what I might expect? I have started to ferment some of my feed hoping the increased nutrition will be helpful. Since I feed them the pellet form of organic soy free feed I noticed that the pellet often seem to be hardly digested as they appear in their poop. After only 2 days the poop is noticeably better..............looking completely digested and firmer.

Thank you.

http://en.aviagen.com/assets/Tech_Center/LIR_Tech_Articles/Indian-River-Be-Smart-IBV.pdf