This came out of a chicken? (pics included)

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erinnyes

erinnyes

Chirping
8 Years
Sep 28, 2011
114
6
91
So, I went out today to feed the chickens and found something very odd in the poop tray. My mom thought it was a dead chick fetus, but of course we have no idea where it might have come from. I thought it might be a very misshapen egg or something? I do have one hen that has been having egg problems (soft-shelled typically, never anything weird like this) and one time I did find one of her soft-shelled eggs with a little mucus-y blood in it, but after that she was fine and there were no other signs of distress. Today we found whatever this is along with a few spots of blood on the poop tray.




Whatever it is, it is small (sort of small egg-sized), firm, and looks sort of like it's made of meat, almost like a little nugget or something? I didn't cut it open because I was a little creeped out, and wasn't sure if it was necessary to completely gross myself out in order for you all to identify whatever it is. ;) Pardon the poo on it, as I mentioned it WAS in the waste tray.
 
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Well, ask and ye shall receive! ;) I got a scalpel, some gloves, and although it curled my toes a little I did a little "autopsy" on it. I'll try to describe it as best I can, and of course I took pictures, so be warned they're kind of gross. At very least it seems obvious to me it's not a chick fetus, but I have no clue what it really is.



Here's the first pic, where I basically cut the thing in half to see what was going on inside. It had a weird kind of "skin" on the outside that was kind of like a membrane, and the "fleshy" bits were spongy feeling. So basically, what I found in this pic after cutting it open and prying it apart was some egg yolk (the yellow stuff there, obviously) that appeared to be hard on one side, with some sort of weird thing on top of it made of something different, and on the other side a VERY hard mass of fleshy stuff. It kind of looks to me like this thing was made up of different bits that all got compressed together somehow.



This is the 2nd pic showing what was inside the "weird top thing" on the side with the egg yolk. No clue what it is. It's hard on the outside and kind of leathery and inside it just had squishy meaty stuff.



I am still not quite sure about this next one. It has a lot of weird things in it. Initially I tried to cut it open but it was much harder to pull apart than the others. It was quite tough. Inside was a little yolk and a lot of lumpy masses. The dark red lump you see on the upper left piece was very grainy in texture, almost sandy. I also cut open one of the lumps and found this glue-y white junk that you see on the bottom right piece.

So, does anyone have any ideas? I'm at a loss but hopefully I have enough pictures here for someone to make sense of it. Whatever it is, it obviously didn't come from a perfectly healthy, normal chicken, am I right? ;) Due to all the fleshy stuff in it I'm willing to bet it isn't just a malformed egg, but I also didn't see anything that could definitely be organs in there so I'm not sure if it was a fetal chick either. Oh, and not sure if this will be helpful in diagnosing, but it did not smell very pleasant. :/ I doubt I need to describe that!

Okay! Let me know what you think? :)
 
I once found something very similar but didn't know how to post pics then.
I described it and was told that sometimes chickens will shed part of their intestinal lining.
Looks like that's what you have there but perhaps an egg got wrapped up with it.
 
Wow! Thanks for investigating and sharing the pictures. I would have flipped out and now have the information to check it out. Hope to hear from more OT's.

Oh, and I for one am glad not to have "smellnet".
sickbyc.gif
 
It could possibly be a chicken ovary. I heard they can pass them due to infections etc. . It would make sense why there is a bit of yolk in there.......
 
The only reason I'm not flipping out is because all my chickens seem to be acting fine. ;) If one looked sick I'd probably tearing my hair out as I usually do when something happens!

So, if it is an ovary or intestinal lining, both of which would make sense, is there any lasting damage to the chicken, and should I be worried?
 

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