FoxySonia
Songster
Yesterday afternoon one of my young pullets, a 9-month old white Appenzeller Spitzhauben bantam died. Earlier in the day, after bringing food to my flock of 23 hens, I noticed the pullet was the last one to leave the pen, she walked slowly and didn't show interest in eating. The last couple of days she seemed to hang back from the rest of the flock but I thought she was eating. She didn't look sick, was at a healthy weight, her eyes clear, had no discharge from anywhere, no sneezing or coughing, her tiny wattle still bright pink, and no dirty vent. No lice or mites anywhere. All the visible droping around the yard and pen looked normal, except for one I found yesterday that looked all white, so mostly urine with no feces, I think was from the sick pullet.
Months ago this pullet used to sneeze a lot, for like 3 months, from the time she was 3 months old, but had no other symptoms and had good appetite. Eventually she stopped sneezing and seemed healthy until yesterday when I notice her slow movements and lack of appetite. Even though she was a flighty bird that usually ran away from me, I was able to get next to her and easily pick her up, and she didn't struggle to try to free herself from my grasp. As soon as I had her in my hands I could feel her breast felt hard. I touched her crop and I don't think I could find it, so must have been very empty, unless it got too full and hard, and it dropped down to the middle of her chest. I also touched her lower abdomen to check for water belly, but didn't seem to have any fluid there, so no ascites. And I felt no mass so I don't think she was eggbound.
I brought her inside and decided to treat her for impacted crop, since I didn't know why her breast felt so stiff. Using an oral syringe, I gave her a little avocado oil before popping a stool softener pill in her beak which she seemed to quickly swallow, but when I tried to give her a little more oil she started struggling and quickly fell limp on her side while loudly squawking. I tried to stand her up but her neck couldn't stay up and she couldn't stand. Thinking that maybe the pill went down the wrong pipe and possibly blocked her windpipe, I picked her up, turned her upside down and gently shock her to try to get the pill regurgitated, but quickly gave up on that. Since she was squawking she must have been able to breathe. I laid her on her side and within less than a minute she died, closing her eyes and squawking one last time before taking her last breath.
I don't know what caused her to die. On the outside she appeared healthy, she wasn't too thin, so she had been eating until recently. I feed my hens a mixture 2/1 of Grubbly Farms Layer Crumbles (16% protein) 6 cups and Grubbly Farms Little Peck's Crumbles (19% protein) 3 cups, with 2 handfuls of Grubterra BSFL grubs and 3/4 cup of organic scratch. They also have free choice of oyster shells and grit (for standard/adult and chick/bantam). Occasionally, about 2 or 3 times a week, they also get fresh vegetables such as kale, cabbage, romaine lettuce, squash, cucumber, corn (during cold weather) and deseeded apple, 2 or 3 small suet cages full. On rare occasions I give them leftover meat with rice or scrambled eggs. My remaining 22 hens (18 are bantams), youngest are 9-10 months old and oldest will be 2 years old on April 28, look healthy and have good appetite with the exception of 1 very broody Satin hen that I had to bring inside and put her in a dog cage to try to break her off her broodiness, it's been 2 days and she's still broody and stressed out being inside away from the nestboxes.
Anyway, as sad as it was having the hen die so suddenly, and feeling a bit guilty that I may have contributed to that, I also felt glad that she didn't suffer long. I waited until later in the day, after the flock had gone into their pen to roost, to attemp to do my first necropsy.
I thought it would be easy, but had no idea what I was doing, and should have watched at least a YouTube video on how to do a necropsy on poultry before attempting it. I thought it would be easy to slice through the hen's breast to see inside to examine her organs. Should have remembered that opening the breast of a chicken carcass wasn't going to be that easy, because of the breastbone. I used a steak knife and stupidly cut horizontally across the breast. It was hard getting through all the feathers but when the knife finally cut through the skin the breast was tough to cut, like cutting rubber, and took several slicing attempts to cut through the tough fibers. The breast meat looked pale and fibrous. I've never seen anything like it before. I decided to not continue cutting into the carcass as I didn't have the stomach for it then and felt I didn't know what I was doing. Later I realize that the reason I didn't see any organs was because they were blocked by the breastbone, which I had not cut into.
That night and today I search on Google for information on hard woody fibrous breast on hens, to try to figure out what could have caused it and if that was the caused of the pullet's death. Seems woody breast is becoming a common problem with fast growing broiler meat chickens, with as many as 30% of commercial broiler chickens having the condition of woody breast.
"According to the National Chicken Council, a woody breast is when chicken breast meat is "hard to the touch and often pale in color with poor quality texture." It's commonly confused with white striping, which is when fat replaces muscle tissue. However, a woody chicken breast is characterized by a tougher or "more complex" consistency. Woody chicken breast meat is more coarse with fibers that feel "woody" — hence the name."
"Woody breast is caused by microscopic inflammation of the small veins in the breast muscle. It begins to occur in birds as young as two weeks old and impairs blood flow in the pectoralis major and (sometimes) minor muscles. The impaired blood flow causes those microscopic muscle fibers to die, which are then replaced by scar tissue. This scar tissue is what we see as the hard, pale breast meat. The condition (and others, such as white striping or spaghetti meat) has been reportedly linked to rapid muscle growth, insufficient vascularization, and oxidative stress that leads to tissue degeneration."
Clink for article explaining woody breast.
Has anyone else had a chicken die with woody breast?
Photo taken on March 26.
a few weeks ago, another pullet, a 10-month old white/paint Satin, got a impacted pendulous crop, which I guessed she developed because she liked to overeat. She showed no other symptoms of illness. I had her inside in a cage so I could treat her and keep her from eating until the food blocking her crop went down, but it never completely empty. After a few days of feeding her oil, massaging her crop to try to loosen the hardened mass of feed in the hopes the crop would empty, and seeing no improvement, I purchased stool softener, recommended on another site, and Monistat cream in case the food in the crop became sour. It took at least 5 days of giving her 1 stool softener a day for the hardened mass in her crop to soften and begin to go down a little at a time. It had been over a week since the poor pullet eaten anything other than coconut and avocado oil, so when the large mass had gotten to less than 1/3 the size, I started giving her a little bit of crumbles abd scrambled egg. Unfortunately, 2 days later her crop was still not emptying and she ended up dying, found her dead the next morning, after nearly 2 weeks of her crop being impacted.
Both if these pullets that died were hatched in my yard by their Merek's vaccinated mother hens. Out of my remaining 22 hens, 8 (6 bantans and 2 standards) were yard hatched babies that were not vaccinated. The other 14 hens (11 bantams and 3 standards) came were vaccinated at the hatcheries before being shipped to me. So I wonder if the unvaccinated pullets that have died (including a few that died as chicks) could have died of Merek's disease.
Months ago this pullet used to sneeze a lot, for like 3 months, from the time she was 3 months old, but had no other symptoms and had good appetite. Eventually she stopped sneezing and seemed healthy until yesterday when I notice her slow movements and lack of appetite. Even though she was a flighty bird that usually ran away from me, I was able to get next to her and easily pick her up, and she didn't struggle to try to free herself from my grasp. As soon as I had her in my hands I could feel her breast felt hard. I touched her crop and I don't think I could find it, so must have been very empty, unless it got too full and hard, and it dropped down to the middle of her chest. I also touched her lower abdomen to check for water belly, but didn't seem to have any fluid there, so no ascites. And I felt no mass so I don't think she was eggbound.
I brought her inside and decided to treat her for impacted crop, since I didn't know why her breast felt so stiff. Using an oral syringe, I gave her a little avocado oil before popping a stool softener pill in her beak which she seemed to quickly swallow, but when I tried to give her a little more oil she started struggling and quickly fell limp on her side while loudly squawking. I tried to stand her up but her neck couldn't stay up and she couldn't stand. Thinking that maybe the pill went down the wrong pipe and possibly blocked her windpipe, I picked her up, turned her upside down and gently shock her to try to get the pill regurgitated, but quickly gave up on that. Since she was squawking she must have been able to breathe. I laid her on her side and within less than a minute she died, closing her eyes and squawking one last time before taking her last breath.
I don't know what caused her to die. On the outside she appeared healthy, she wasn't too thin, so she had been eating until recently. I feed my hens a mixture 2/1 of Grubbly Farms Layer Crumbles (16% protein) 6 cups and Grubbly Farms Little Peck's Crumbles (19% protein) 3 cups, with 2 handfuls of Grubterra BSFL grubs and 3/4 cup of organic scratch. They also have free choice of oyster shells and grit (for standard/adult and chick/bantam). Occasionally, about 2 or 3 times a week, they also get fresh vegetables such as kale, cabbage, romaine lettuce, squash, cucumber, corn (during cold weather) and deseeded apple, 2 or 3 small suet cages full. On rare occasions I give them leftover meat with rice or scrambled eggs. My remaining 22 hens (18 are bantams), youngest are 9-10 months old and oldest will be 2 years old on April 28, look healthy and have good appetite with the exception of 1 very broody Satin hen that I had to bring inside and put her in a dog cage to try to break her off her broodiness, it's been 2 days and she's still broody and stressed out being inside away from the nestboxes.
Anyway, as sad as it was having the hen die so suddenly, and feeling a bit guilty that I may have contributed to that, I also felt glad that she didn't suffer long. I waited until later in the day, after the flock had gone into their pen to roost, to attemp to do my first necropsy.
I thought it would be easy, but had no idea what I was doing, and should have watched at least a YouTube video on how to do a necropsy on poultry before attempting it. I thought it would be easy to slice through the hen's breast to see inside to examine her organs. Should have remembered that opening the breast of a chicken carcass wasn't going to be that easy, because of the breastbone. I used a steak knife and stupidly cut horizontally across the breast. It was hard getting through all the feathers but when the knife finally cut through the skin the breast was tough to cut, like cutting rubber, and took several slicing attempts to cut through the tough fibers. The breast meat looked pale and fibrous. I've never seen anything like it before. I decided to not continue cutting into the carcass as I didn't have the stomach for it then and felt I didn't know what I was doing. Later I realize that the reason I didn't see any organs was because they were blocked by the breastbone, which I had not cut into.
That night and today I search on Google for information on hard woody fibrous breast on hens, to try to figure out what could have caused it and if that was the caused of the pullet's death. Seems woody breast is becoming a common problem with fast growing broiler meat chickens, with as many as 30% of commercial broiler chickens having the condition of woody breast.
"According to the National Chicken Council, a woody breast is when chicken breast meat is "hard to the touch and often pale in color with poor quality texture." It's commonly confused with white striping, which is when fat replaces muscle tissue. However, a woody chicken breast is characterized by a tougher or "more complex" consistency. Woody chicken breast meat is more coarse with fibers that feel "woody" — hence the name."
"Woody breast is caused by microscopic inflammation of the small veins in the breast muscle. It begins to occur in birds as young as two weeks old and impairs blood flow in the pectoralis major and (sometimes) minor muscles. The impaired blood flow causes those microscopic muscle fibers to die, which are then replaced by scar tissue. This scar tissue is what we see as the hard, pale breast meat. The condition (and others, such as white striping or spaghetti meat) has been reportedly linked to rapid muscle growth, insufficient vascularization, and oxidative stress that leads to tissue degeneration."
Clink for article explaining woody breast.
Has anyone else had a chicken die with woody breast?
Photo taken on March 26.
a few weeks ago, another pullet, a 10-month old white/paint Satin, got a impacted pendulous crop, which I guessed she developed because she liked to overeat. She showed no other symptoms of illness. I had her inside in a cage so I could treat her and keep her from eating until the food blocking her crop went down, but it never completely empty. After a few days of feeding her oil, massaging her crop to try to loosen the hardened mass of feed in the hopes the crop would empty, and seeing no improvement, I purchased stool softener, recommended on another site, and Monistat cream in case the food in the crop became sour. It took at least 5 days of giving her 1 stool softener a day for the hardened mass in her crop to soften and begin to go down a little at a time. It had been over a week since the poor pullet eaten anything other than coconut and avocado oil, so when the large mass had gotten to less than 1/3 the size, I started giving her a little bit of crumbles abd scrambled egg. Unfortunately, 2 days later her crop was still not emptying and she ended up dying, found her dead the next morning, after nearly 2 weeks of her crop being impacted.
Both if these pullets that died were hatched in my yard by their Merek's vaccinated mother hens. Out of my remaining 22 hens, 8 (6 bantans and 2 standards) were yard hatched babies that were not vaccinated. The other 14 hens (11 bantams and 3 standards) came were vaccinated at the hatcheries before being shipped to me. So I wonder if the unvaccinated pullets that have died (including a few that died as chicks) could have died of Merek's disease.
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