What Killed Lorelei.. Layman's Necropsy(WARNING!!-GRAPHIC PICS BELOW)

Hi, all. For everyone who was interested in what we found when we opened up our sweet SLW hen, Lorelei, who passed away a couple of days ago, here are the findings. The major organs, as far as we could tell, looked completely healthy. No sign of worms at all, of any kind, tape or otherwise. She had what looked like huge sausage casings of solidified yolk material in her abdomen. All organs seemed okay to me. Liver, heart, lungs all fine, just little tumor-like things that looked like cooked yolks and big sausages of yolks. The first thing that came out of the fallopian tube near the vent was a little thing, I guess you'd call a tumor, like a balled up piece of bread, but obviously egg material.
We took photographs and if you think it appropriate, I will at least show you the "sausages of yolk" so you can see what happens to many of these high production hens. Lorelei never stopped laying from the moment she began till her trouble last summer when her hard molt started and contents of egg would come from her with no shells or membrane at times. She then quit laying for about two weeks to finish her molt and started back into production and didn't stop till about six weeks ago. Her last few eggs didn't look great, were pale with thin shells. Let me know if you want to see what was building up inside my poor girl.

I am very intreseted I am glad you did an autopsy maybe its ok that my hens might take a few days off here and there :| and will probably take the winter off because the tractor is so open and maybe part of the summer two if its to hot so my hens will have plenty of breaks LOL anyway none of mine are really big production strains besides the leghorn X Jersey Giant hen I have. Start looking for egg sausages in the yard maybe the other girls passed them and that is why they are improving or maybe an eggs that has like 7 or 8 yolk inside hmm. I am suprised I have been getting at least one double yolker a day ! these Delawares really do lay jumbo eggs and so does the JG x Leghorn hen

Henry

Yes, I'd like to see for learning purposes. This would be a good sticky for people to see what happens to some production-type hens. I was wondering if a hen can become an internal layer, yet still lay some thin-shelled eggs. Did Lorelei pass any liquid from her vent when she died? Sorry, to be so gross and blunt....
Again, I'm sorry for your loss.

I would very much appreciate seeing the photos. It seems you can never learn enough about caring for chickens. I'm very sorry that you lost her speckledhen.

I'd like to see the pictures as well. Im so sorry for your loss, Cyn. Its hard to lose one, especially one of the originals.

Ok, then, I'll put a warning on the original post then work on getting them up. We do, after all, have crop surgery photos, and I believe this may be something worth seeing.

Lorelei didn't pass any liquid from her vent when she died, hencackle. I was holding her at the time.
First of all, this is a little tumor that fell out as we got to the back end and pressed on the fallopian tube. It's solid and rubbery, like overcooked egg yolk.



This is what was collecting in my poor hen, probably from last summer when her first trouble started. You can see some of the other organs. No lesions of any type on the liver or heart, that I could see. They all appeared healthy. If any of our medical people see anything of any consequence, please speak up:

Wow. Poor thing carrying all that inside.

Thanks for the pics. They are sure to be helpful.

There are more photos, but these are the crucial ones. I have some of her beautiful healthy liver, her lungs, I think, her crop, etc. I see that there was really nothing I could have done, that by the time I knew something was wrong, this was very advanced.

I'm glad you now know what was wrong with Lorelei.

It's amazing with all that going on in there that she made it as far as she did! She was one strong determined hen.