Updated! - Test Your Diagnostic Skills - Warning, Contains Graphic Necropsy Photos

[JDelage]

Great thread, thank you everyone.

 

[260906]

A mystery illness has killed five of our chickens in the last month. Here's the thread about my situation: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1150567/dying-left-and-right

I've been waiting for over three weeks to hear back from the state poultry commission on a necropsy. I called this morning, and they indicated it may be several more weeks before I get the results.

I attempted my own necropsy on the last pullet that died. rebrascora is kindly helping me and suggested I share the photos on this thread to get more input. I'll just copy and paste what I sent to her:

Here is the entire pullet when I was done exploring.


Here are the lungs (?) which have me completely confused. The pale one came from her left side. It was firmer and had tiny, pale-yellow dots in it. The other two came from her right side, which was filled with coagulated blood. The pale one was firmer than the other two.


Here is the heart. The bottom tip of the heart (at the top of the photo) looks a bit funny because I had cut into it to look at the inside. The blobs of fat all over it were individually stuck onto the heart -- I could push my finger in between them and just barely see the surface of the heart. It looked to me like the fat I see hanging on chicken breasts that I buy from the grocery store.


This is the intestines, ceca, and gizzard. I cut a length of the intestines open and saw no visible parasites.


Here is the kidneys, which I didn't remove. There is a small piece of the liver lying to the right side on the feathers. There is one tiny bump of fatty-looking stuff on it. I'm not positive if that was actually attached to it, or if I got that on there when I pulled it out. The front surface of the liver when I first cut the pullet open looked perfectly smooth and even in color. It was surprisingly large--covering almost everything else when I cut the skin off the organs.


This is the crop that is cut open.


The trachea looked completely clean inside when I cut a section open. I cut the spleen in half, and it was a uniform texture and color inside and out. I forgot to open her mouth and look inside -- I really didn't know a lot about what I was doing.

Thanks in advance for any and all input you can share.

 

[Wonderwend]

A mystery illness has killed five of our chickens in the last month. Here's the thread about my situation: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1150567/dying-left-and-right

I've been waiting for over three weeks to hear back from the state poultry commission on a necropsy. I called this morning, and they indicated it may be several more weeks before I get the results.

I attempted my own necropsy on the last pullet that died. rebrascora is kindly helping me and suggested I share the photos on this thread to get more input. I'll just copy and paste what I sent to her:

Here is the entire pullet when I was done exploring.


Here are the lungs (?) which have me completely confused. The pale one came from her left side. It was firmer and had tiny, pale-yellow dots in it. The other two came from her right side, which was filled with coagulated blood. The pale one was firmer than the other two.


Here is the heart. The bottom tip of the heart (at the top of the photo) looks a bit funny because I had cut into it to look at the inside. The blobs of fat all over it were individually stuck onto the heart -- I could push my finger in between them and just barely see the surface of the heart. It looked to me like the fat I see hanging on chicken breasts that I buy from the grocery store.


This is the intestines, ceca, and gizzard. I cut a length of the intestines open and saw no visible parasites.


Here is the kidneys, which I didn't remove. There is a small piece of the liver lying to the right side on the feathers. There is one tiny bump of fatty-looking stuff on it. I'm not positive if that was actually attached to it, or if I got that on there when I pulled it out. The front surface of the liver when I first cut the pullet open looked perfectly smooth and even in color. It was surprisingly large--covering almost everything else when I cut the skin off the organs.


This is the crop that is cut open.


The trachea looked completely clean inside when I cut a section open. I cut the spleen in half, and it was a uniform texture and color inside and out. I forgot to open her mouth and look inside -- I really didn't know a lot about what I was doing.

Thanks in advance for any and all input you can share.

Firstly can I say WELL DONE for attempting this. It's not easy to do this on a bird you know, but it shows how far you are willing to go to help your birds and by posting pictures here you will help many others.
The liver is surprisingly large isn't it! That was a shock to me at first.

I hate to say it but that ,to me, looks like the signs of Visceral Marek's - That's totally what my money is on. ( I'm not a Vet) Most people recognise the neurological one where they stagger around etc but there are different forms. The Visceral form presents with tumours in the heart, ovary, testes, muscles, lungs etc.
There is a lot of tissue growing round the heart and in lumps in the bowel that shouldn't be there. Its tissue tumours not fat ( wrong colour; fat is yellow).
Liver colour and texture looks good from what i can see. The kidneys are very enlarged.
I don't know what anyone else thinks but, as i said, my money is on Visceral Marek's.
You'll have to wait til your tests come back. In the meantime don't add to your flock and consider following Marek's guidelines anyway.
That's my two penneth worth xx

 

[260906]

Firstly can I say WELL DONE for attempting this. It's not easy to do this on a bird you know, but it shows how far you are willing to go to help your birds and by posting pictures here you will help many others.
The liver is surprisingly large isn't it! That was a shock to me at first.

I hate to say it but that ,to me, looks like the signs of Visceral Marek's

Thanks for your input. Sigh...everything seems to be pointing toward Marek's.

A few weeks ago, I had never even heard of the disease.

I found some great videos instructing veterinarians on how to do a necropsy, and saw how very yellow the fat appeared. That's definitely not what was all over the heart I saw.

Here's a link to the videos, in case anyone is interested. They show helpful examples of healthy and diseased body parts for comparison.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgyMKAquGJOYDl0XB7do7je54TyqV4Rq5

 

[rebrascora]

Many thanks for posting the link to those videos. I haven't had time to watch them all yet but I am hoping they will help me do a more thorough and professional job on future chicken post mortem exams.
It really is fascinating opening them up once you get past the emotional aspect of it and it has also helped give me the knowledge and confidence to do crop surgery on a bantam pullet that was on her way out with an impacted crop 4 days ago. Removed a 3 inch ball of fibrous material (soggy straw and dried grass) and she is now up and about and on the mend.

 

[260906]

Many thanks for posting the link to those videos. I haven't had time to watch them all yet but I am hoping they will help me do a more thorough and professional job on future chicken post mortem exams.
It really is fascinating opening them up once you get past the emotional aspect of it and it has also helped give me the knowledge and confidence to do crop surgery on a bantam pullet that was on her way out with an impacted crop 4 days ago. Removed a 3 inch ball of fibrous material (soggy straw and dried grass) and she is now up and about and on the mend.

I watched them last night. They are very...detailed.

I would pause the videos occasionally, close my eyes, and think back to what I saw in the pullet I examined. Comparing her flesh to the videos, I see she was more underweight than I realized. The "fat" around her heart was also not like the color and texture of fat in the videos -- I see why people have thought it is tumors. It looks like the same stuff may be all over the membrane that connects the intestines to the body (the mesentery, I think it's called).

Crop surgery?!

Wow! I doubt I'll ever be that brave!

 

[Wonderwend]

Many thanks for posting the link to those videos. I haven't had time to watch them all yet but I am hoping they will help me do a more thorough and professional job on future chicken post mortem exams.
It really is fascinating opening them up once you get past the emotional aspect of it and it has also helped give me the knowledge and confidence to do crop surgery on a bantam pullet that was on her way out with an impacted crop 4 days ago. Removed a 3 inch ball of fibrous material (soggy straw and dried grass) and she is now up and about and on the mend.

Out of interest what did you close the crop tissue with? I've considered doing it before now but was very concerned about the closure and healing as it is very thin tissue.

 

[Wonderwend]

Sweet Basil, thanks for the video link ; I've just watched all of them. Wished they'd have shown more abnormal pics though. I've learnt some crucial bits from it though ; Bursa exam and 'tonsils'. Examining lymphatic tissue is very diagnostic.
I'm not a vet but your bird's intestines etc are not happy at all. It's good that you can see what we mean about the tissue you are seeing not being fat.
Please let us know if you hear any more from the necropsy , I would be very interested to hear what else they have to say and the final diagnosis.
Thanks again x

 

[260906]

Sweet Basil, thanks for the video link ; I've just watched all of them. Wished they'd have shown more abnormal pics though. I've learnt some crucial bits from it though ; Bursa exam and 'tonsils'. Examining lymphatic tissue is very diagnostic.
I'm not a vet but your bird's intestines etc are not happy at all. It's good that you can see what we mean about the tissue you are seeing not being fat.
Please let us know if you hear any more from the necropsy , I would be very interested to hear what else they have to say and the final diagnosis.
Thanks again x

I'm glad the videos helped you. I thought they seemed very good. I will definitely post any updates on my original thread (so I don't sidetrack this one too much).

Here's a link to the thread again: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/1150567/dying-left-and-right

The pathologist said "I have moved your case to the top of my stack, since you are still losing birds," so I hope to have results before too many more weeks (deaths!). He decided to test some samples for Marek's ASAP, and thought he might have results on that by the end of this week.

 

[rebrascora]

Regarding the crop surgery, it was a case of do or die. I had been doing all the non intrusive stuff like oil and massage and vomiting for nearly a week and she was so emaciated I knew she wouldn't last much longer, especially when she lost interest in food. I can't afford vets for my chickens, so it was a question of euthanize or give it a go. I won't deny it, making that first incision was really scary and it bled a little more than I expected even though I did my best to avoid the blood vessels you could clearly see through her skin. I had my OH hold her on her side whilst I did it and I think this may have been a mistake as she struggled when I made the first incision and refluxed quite badly as a result and aspirated some of the vomit because of the recumbent position. She was very good through the rest of the surgery....too quiet at times and I thought perhaps she had died, but once it was complete, she was straight up onto her feet and was eating a little within an hour.

Quote: I used regular super glue to close the crop up and it seems to have worked brilliantly. It was a bit fiddly getting hold of the edges to be stuck separate of the skin and blotting them dry(ish) before applying the glue and preventing my gloved fingers from also being adhered, but definitely a lot easier than trying to stitch it. I left the skin open so that if there was any leakage from the crop it could drain and just packed the wound with Germolene which is an antiseptic cream. I tried putting a dressing on it and using a leg cut off some tights(pantyhose to you) to keep it in place but she managed to wriggle out of it every time and her breathing was raspy with aspirating and I didn't want to agitate her any more than was necessary so gave up trying to cover it. The first night I convinced myself that she would die from respiratory infection from aspirating as she was very snotty sounding and ruttly. I did the surgery Sunday afternoon and up until yesterday there was no real improvement with her breathing but the wound was healing and she was eating a scrambled egg and slice of soggy bread each day. Yesterday, there was a notable improvement in her breathing and I even put her back in the pen with her palls for a short supervised visit. The wound is dry and scabbed. I haven't done any wound management on it since the surgery as her breathing was so bad I didn't want to put any stress on her. She has been alert and keen to escape and explore my house and poop on my carpet

whenever possible, so I really feel the surgery itself did not knock her back at all. The only thing I would have changed about it is perhaps having her held in an upright position whilst I did the surgery rather than recumbent, to avoid that reflux problem.

Here is a photo of what I removed from her crop.....clearly it was not going to come up via vomiting or go down into her gizzard, and if it had, it would almost certainly have impacted there, so I really felt vindicated in doing the surgery....I did not undertake it lightly. Interestingly it did not smell bad at all which is surprising considering that it is wet vegetation. I do feed a little fermented feed daily so perhaps this helped to keep things healthy. She was less than half the weight she was before surgery, once I removed it.


And a couple of photos of her and her wound from yesterday...3 days post surgery.



I did a search on You Tube and watched quite a few videos before I started and that helped a lot.

The only thing that is concerning me at the moment is that her poop is very liquid ie watery with some soft solids. What perplexes me is that she is hardly drinking anything and whilst I am feeding sloppy feeds they are really not sloppy enough to account for all the fluid that is coming out. I did irrigate her crop with saline during the surgery so maybe some of that went down into her system though. She has refused to drink at all whilst recuperating in the house but she did go straight to the drinker in the pen yesterday and drink which was a huge relief. Will be happier if/when(hopefully) I start to see some normal poops but she is alert and active, so I'm counting my blessings for now.

I would definitely encourage anyone who has a chicken with crop issues that has tried everything else and feels that there is no hope, to give it a go. The great thing about the crop is that it is not near any vital organs, so not a lot to go wrong.

Regards

Barbara