WARNING: GRAPHIC Photos - not for the squeamish - you've been warned......... 
Our 4 year-old Golden Comet, Rocky, came from a chicken hatchery as about a 3 week-old in 2019 with two others her same age. We lost one of her sisters about 6 months ago to a dog attack, while her other sister is fine. These were our only laying hens, hens we keep for egg production alone amidst all of our Silkies.
Rocky began having issues with lethargy and a slow-to-drain crop, so we began treating for that with regular massages, coconut oil, and moist feed. After a week of that, we did a more extensive exam of her and felt like we were dealing with water-belly (ascites). In fact, we were, so we ordered new winged butterfly sets since the one we thought we had left was nowhere to be found. We drained her abdomen about 4 days ago and took some 400ml of fluid out of her - yes that's 4/10 of a liter!!!
She was a champ through it all, but her condition didn't improve at all except that she'd spend time with the flock in the 2-4 hours we let them free range in our yard each evening. She was alert, eyes open, but just had ZERO energy, couldn't move very far/fast, and wouldn't eat anything but live mealworms on her own. We made the call to put her down last evening and do a primitive necropsy on her, just to get photos of her organs for input here.
The images are graphic, but we see what we believe to be two huge red flags in the photos: 1) the white "spots" on her organs and 2) the ping-pong ball size mass that I've got circled in photos 7, 8, and 15. This mass was like hard rubber, very difficult to cut and consistent in its firmness throughout. We think this was a tumor, maybe a lash egg (we were not super-certain what portion of her insides this was attached to, digestive tract, reproductive tract, etc as we're not chicken surgeons).
Will you folks give us your opinions on what you see?? Thank you so much!
@azygous, @Eggcessive, @casportpony, @Kiki, @coach723, @Wyorp Rock
Our 4 year-old Golden Comet, Rocky, came from a chicken hatchery as about a 3 week-old in 2019 with two others her same age. We lost one of her sisters about 6 months ago to a dog attack, while her other sister is fine. These were our only laying hens, hens we keep for egg production alone amidst all of our Silkies.
Rocky began having issues with lethargy and a slow-to-drain crop, so we began treating for that with regular massages, coconut oil, and moist feed. After a week of that, we did a more extensive exam of her and felt like we were dealing with water-belly (ascites). In fact, we were, so we ordered new winged butterfly sets since the one we thought we had left was nowhere to be found. We drained her abdomen about 4 days ago and took some 400ml of fluid out of her - yes that's 4/10 of a liter!!!
She was a champ through it all, but her condition didn't improve at all except that she'd spend time with the flock in the 2-4 hours we let them free range in our yard each evening. She was alert, eyes open, but just had ZERO energy, couldn't move very far/fast, and wouldn't eat anything but live mealworms on her own. We made the call to put her down last evening and do a primitive necropsy on her, just to get photos of her organs for input here.
The images are graphic, but we see what we believe to be two huge red flags in the photos: 1) the white "spots" on her organs and 2) the ping-pong ball size mass that I've got circled in photos 7, 8, and 15. This mass was like hard rubber, very difficult to cut and consistent in its firmness throughout. We think this was a tumor, maybe a lash egg (we were not super-certain what portion of her insides this was attached to, digestive tract, reproductive tract, etc as we're not chicken surgeons).
Will you folks give us your opinions on what you see?? Thank you so much!
@azygous, @Eggcessive, @casportpony, @Kiki, @coach723, @Wyorp Rock
Thank you!
