Breathing difficulties

[Wyorp Rock]

However, the strangest thing happened. She burped on two occasions.

Interesting that she burped a couple of times.
Even though the crop is empty, can you gently massage it for a few minutes, see what happens?

 

[Mimi13]

Unfortunately I hate to report that we put Blanca down tonight. What I saw from her later this afternoon and into the evening was a chicken in distress. To be more exact, she showed signs of having an asthma attack. I was all set up to feed her, but just couldn’t. She was suffering too badly.

After she was euthanized (by cervical dislocation), I did an amateur necropsy. My first probe was to find something blocking her airway, but I found nothing other than an empty trachea, completely clear. Her crop had a negligent amount of food in it and, by this time, had a little bit of air, but I believe the air seeped in after she was euthanized.

After all of my worrying today of literally listening to what I thought was her suffocating, what I found was disturbing and also what I think was slowly killing her.

To my untrained eye, and yes I want others to tell me, I believe she was eaten up with cancer. Her liver had several spots in/on it. Some were as hard as her gizzard, while others were a bit squishy. Every other body part looked normal, per se. Her ovaries and oviduct looked to be in good shape. There was an egg in the shell gland.

So, with all that being said, here are the pictures I took. (I still have her liver in a zip lock bag in the fridge.)

Spoiler: Necropsy photos

The spot on her right lobe was squishy.

The other spots on the liver, mostly in the middle and underneath, were hard.

I didn’t count but I know there were for sure six or seven masses (5 can be seen in this shot).

I hate to have lost my little Columbian Wyandotte, Blanca, but at least I know she is no longer suffering. She was one of my go-getter foragers, as evidenced by what all I found in her gizzard. Silly bird. Tomorrow was her 1 year birthday. RIP Sweet Blanca. 4/16/18 - 4/15/19

 

[Mimi13]

And thank you @Wyorp Rock and @Eggcessive for your wonderful help today. I just really had no clue what I was dealing with.

I am only assuming the masses were what did her in, but who knows, that could have been secondary to what actually was causing her breathing difficulty. What do y’all think?

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I'm so sorry about Blanca.

Mimi, you did a very good job on the necropsy thank you for this. I have not seen anything like that on the liver even in photos. She did have quite a bit of fat in the abdomen too - Now, another question would be is there excess fat because she had been ill for a good while, genetics or possibly diet. I think some of us have had this discussion in the past.

Your findings are interesting. Hopefully Eggcessive might recognize this.

I'm going to tag a few others to take a look as well. More eyes and thoughts.
@casportpony @coach723 @rebrascora @speckledhen @TwoCrows

 

[Mimi13]

I'm so sorry about Blanca.

Mimi, you did a very good job on the necropsy thank you for this. I have not seen anything like that on the liver even in photos. She did have quite a bit of fat in the abdomen too - Now, another question would be is there excess fat because she had been ill for a good while, genetics or possibly diet. I think some of us have had this discussion in the past.

Your findings are interesting. Hopefully Eggcessive might recognize this.

I'm going to tag a few others to take a look as well. More eyes and thoughts.
@casportpony @coach723 @rebrascora @speckledhen @TwoCrows

Yes indeed she was very fatty in the lower abdomen. All the cockerels I have slaughtered have had that same fat mass in the belly. I thought it might have been that they each were kept in a 10 x 15 run and weren’t able to get out and exercise beforehand. She was the first hen that I’ve opened up. Same fat pouch. Strange. My birds free range all day and eat Flock Raiser, with occasional 5 grain scratch thrown to them. Now some of my girls do forage in the barn and I’m certain pick up the leftover horse feed. As far as anything else, it would be an occasional cracker or pretzel stolen from my grandson. Yes, they are thieves.

 

[speckledhen]

I'm sorry you lost your girl. One thing many don't think about regarding sneezing is cysts in the nares. I've had at least two hens with those, one now who is almost completely closed off, can't even see how she's breathing. The other was my almost 10 yr old Buff Brahma, who was always a sneezer. I felt from early on that her nares were an issue and later, cysts formed in both, though she never had any laying issues. You may be seeing two different things happening that were not even related. It's almost impossible for me to say.

Hens with reproductive issues often have trouble breathing as it is, strain on their organs from growths and fluid, etc. I don't have MG in my flocks, but have had many hens with salpingitis/ internal laying/ reproductive cancers/ egg yolk peritonitis (almost all hatchery girls or daughters of hatchery girls).

 

[Mimi13]

I'm sorry you lost your girl. One thing many don't think about regarding sneezing is cysts in the nares. I've had at least two hens with those, one now who is almost completely closed off, can't even see how she's breathing. The other was my almost 10 yr old Buff Brahma, who was always a sneezer. I felt from early on that her nares were an issue and later, cysts formed in both, though she never had any laying issues. You may be seeing two different things happening that were not even related. It's almost impossible for me to say.

Hens with reproductive issues often have trouble breathing as it is, strain on their organs from growths and fluid, etc. I don't have MG in my flocks, but have had many hens with salpingitis/ internal laying/ reproductive cancers/ egg yolk peritonitis (almost all hatchery girls or daughters of hatchery girls).

Thank you. You are correct. I didn’t think to even check her nares. I’m not sure how I would do that unless I cracked into the skull. However, I didn’t see any swelling whatsoever around the nares or in her mouth.

I have two hens, both 3 years old, that have some sort of reproductive issue. They are both from a breeder. And then the one I dealt with yesterday had had one instance of a soft shelled egg busting inside her, which I helped her expel the shell. She was a hatchery bird. I believe I have one more hatchery hen with the same reproductive issues, but I haven’t been able to figure out which one it is.

And, like you said, this girl may have had two different things going on. Thank you again.

 

[Eggcessive]

So Sorry to hear about Blanca. After looking at the necropsy photos, I think that you really did her a favor, and prevented a lot of suffering. She had metastatic liver cancer, a type I haven't seen before. Usually we see white or cream colored spots with Mareks disease and avian leukosis, I think. This might be a melanoma, but I am not certain. Did you see anything on her oviduct? I have seen a lot of fat on some of my hens, and one had fatty liver disease on a necropsy (my amateur guess.)

 

[Eggcessive]

This is a picture of melanoma in a chicken, one of the rarer types of tumor, and can be see in part 4. Of course it may not be a melanoma in Blanca—that is only a guess. Here is an article to read as well:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0300985811415706

 

[Mimi13]

So Sorry to hear about Blanca. After looking at the necropsy photos, I think that you really did her a favor, and prevented a lot of suffering. She had metastatic liver cancer, a type I haven't seen before. Usually we see white or cream colored spots with Mareks disease and avian leukosis, I think. This might be a melanoma, but I am not certain. Did you see anything on her oviduct? I have seen a lot of fat on some of my hens, and one had fatty liver disease on a necropsy (my amateur guess.)

Thank you. What I found looked very strange. Something makes me want to cut into the masses but I don’t know if I should.

I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary with the reproductive tract; however, this is the first hen I have opened up, so all I have to compare it to are pictures. Please tell me if something looks amiss. Here are a few pics I took. There is an egg in the shell gland that I didn’t get a picture of, but you can see it in a couple of these shots. There was something in the last two pics that I wasn’t sure what it was, but it didn’t look to be anything “bad.”

Spoiler: Reproductive Necropsy Pics

This little ball on my fingers was hard as a rock. It was not inside the oviduct, rather encased in the connective tissues. It was smaller than a marble.

This pic shows a “balloon” in the connective tissues a little further down. The egg is right underneath this bubble and the little hard piece can be seen a tad below the bubble.

View attachment 1740187

Does everything look normal in these pics?