Blackhead or Histomoniasis case in Chicken

[casportpony]

Wow this is great info! Too bad I didn't know this is what my hen had until I did an autopsy :-\
I was suspecting cancer but what I found was caecum extremely enlarged and hard, bigger than the width of my thumb! Filled with hard smelly white substance.
I also found huge amounts of round worms in her intestine.

My question is, if it's gotten to that point is their much chance of recovery? My hen was ill for months but I was treating for the wrong illnesses. She got too cold one night and I ended up killing her as she was almost there and I didn't want her to suffer.

Sorry for your loss... *Maybe* she would have lived if you had wormed her the moment you noticed she was off and started her on a combo of metronidazole and Baytril, but I can't say for sure. What did her liver look like? Was her poop yellow or any shade of yellow?

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

Blackhead necropsy pictures
Note: This is not my bird, it's one I sold two months ago and it was one that was raised indoors and off the ground, it was healthy and parasite/protozoa free when it left here.

Got a call from someone that I sold two young peacocks to several months ago saying that both were looking sick a few days ago. I told him I would come get the dead one and the one still alive and try to save it, but it died four hours after I brought it home.

Symptoms:

• Depressed
• Dropped wings
• Not eating
• Weak
• Thin
• Yellow liquid poop
• Dark green cecal poop with blood

Here he is looking very stoic three hours before he died. You can't tell from the picture, but he's about 1kg (2.2 pounds) underweight.


Here is a poop picture, but it looked much more yellow than it does here.

Here are the necropsy pictures from one of the peacocks.



Liver and cecal pouches


Contents of cecal pouch - black liquid poop, NOT normal!


Inside of cecal pouch




Liver with the blackhead spots and I think the black edges are necrotic

-Kathy

 

[Frizzlefraz]

Mm very interesting.
My silkie hen that I got at 12 weeks and lived for 2 months I'm my care was very underweight. Only 400 grams when I got her which is about 500grams under weight. I put ivermec on her when I first got her thinking it would treat all worms.
Her poo was green and runny.
Wings dropped, no appetite, lethargic.
I got photos of organs that had damage.
Her liver was normal

First pictures are of ceacal and ceacal content.

Next pictures are of white lumps found in the lungs and on the inside of carcass.

Last photo is round worms found in intestine.

 

[Bogtown Chick]

Sorry you lost your hen frizzlefraz. Sylvia was probably 2-3 days into her "symptoms" --sleepy/wet fluff/yellow colored poop. before I pinned down what I was dealing with. Then it took me a while to research how I could get the flagyl or Fishzole without an Rx. I'm pretty sure she was fighting it for a while....wet, rainy June here...and then she started molting and the disease took on its full symptoms. This website saved her, that I'm sure of. Right now she's my best layer.

Kudos for you doing a necropsy on your bird too.

Best,
Bogtown.

 

[Frizzlefraz]

It is a very good resource with lots of knowledgeable people. As you can see by the photos her symptoms were very advanced. In the last photo you can see I cut open the ceacum and took out the hard stuff, looked and felt like some kind of cheese.
If I get a faecal test will it show up in the test if my other chickens have those worms?

 

[dawg53]

It is a very good resource with lots of knowledgeable people. As you can see by the photos her symptoms were very advanced. In the last photo you can see I cut open the ceacum and took out the hard stuff, looked and felt like some kind of cheese.
If I get a faecal test will it show up in the test if my other chickens have those worms?

A fecal test may or may not show worm oocysts on the microscopic slide. If one bird has worms, most likely the others have them as well. The infected birds droppings containing worm eggs that were deposited onto the soil. Birds constantly peck the ground and will pick up worm eggs and ingest them starting the worms lifecycle all over again. Also, insects eat the worms eggs, then birds eat the infected insects completely the worms lifecycle in that manner as well. It's best to worm all your birds and redose them again 10 days later to kill larva hatched from eggs missed by the initial dosing.

 

[Bogtown Chick]

Tonight, Violet, my laying easter egger started dropping these caseous droppings in her egg shell color--no less--. I watched her for a bit on my deck and she left a very wet dropping under one of the chairs on the deck and then several of these blue "cheese curds". Her demeanor is drowsy, no appetite (not typical of a hen that just left me an egg on Monday) I also see some yellowish tinge to these droppings and to the urates in her "normal poop". I think Violet has Blackhead much like Sylvia had last summer. I'll treat with Fishzole tablets x 5 days and then I'll worm all birds, again. My Australorp looks thin to me. She's the only one laying now but they are due for an egg break.

Lots of rain and low spots and worm eating going on again this year.

 

[Sylviaanne]

Why is the layman's name Blackhead? I have not done a big search but I have seen nothing that indicates their heads turn colors when they get this. Thanks, Sylvia

 

[chooks4life]

Why is the layman's name Blackhead? I have not done a big search but I have seen nothing that indicates their heads turn colors when they get this. Thanks, Sylvia

Because the disease has a few variants with differing degrees of virulence, and when it was first identified the strain best known was European, an extremely virulent strain which caused their heads to literally turn black. That's from vets, that bit of info, not just 'laymen'.

Some 'experts' claim there is no such thing as histomoniasis that causes their heads to turn black, but that's a myth and only indicates that they take their own experience as being indicative of the whole, and unfortunately try to teach others their experience as though it were universal fact.

Thankfully we don't appear to have the worst strain of blackhead in Australia, and the same appears true for America, but even so some of my turkeys who had it developed purple head/neck areas. All the skin just went dusky. However most of the rest had no such issue.

Best wishes.

 

[Sylviaanne]

When you cure your birds, do the head/neck areas go back to their normal color? Thanks.