Breathing difficulties

[TwoCrows]

All of this that I have read and seen the past two days is amazing and unfortunately, through sickness, I have learned so much. There is still so much to learn, but it seems most learning comes from experience with sick birds. Such is life!

Thank you all for this excellent advice. It truly means a lot.

We had horse drama at the house today, which hindered me from devoting the time I needed to inspect Blanca’s liver further. Hopefully, all fingers crossed, I will be able to do this tomorrow.

This has certainly been an eventful few days. Sunday found me processing a 7 mo BO cockerel. Ugh! He was truly a pecker head. Then, after cleaning his lot out, I moved 5 of the 7 twelve week old cockerels that I hatched out of the main coop and into this lot. This lot kind of is known as the “freezer holding lot.” That’s the way the ball bounces around here. Monday began with me tending to a sick chicken and eventually euthanizing her and today was spent setting up the outside brooder and moving the 12 3 week old chicks to it. Fun times?!? I’ll say!

Thanks again y’all!

Yes, as unfortunate as it is, we learn through our flocks sickness. Just simple reading doesn't allow it to sink in, it's only when we have hands on experience do we learn how these birds work. You will be a much better steward to your flock the more issues you have. You seem to be on the perfect tract to being the perfect chicken keeper! Good luck in all your poultry adventures!

 

[Mimi13]

Yes, as unfortunate as it is, we learn through our flocks sickness. Just simple reading doesn't allow it to sink in, it's only when we have hands on experience do we learn how these birds work. You will be a much better steward to your flock the more issues you have. You seem to be on the perfect tract to being the perfect chicken keeper! Good luck in all your poultry adventures!

Thank you very much for your kind words. And not that I want to bring more adversity into my life, but experience truly is the best teacher. I’m surely old enough to know that.

 

[TwoCrows]

Thank you very much for your kind words. And not that I want to bring more adversity into my life, but experience truly is the best teacher. I’m surely old enough to know that.

....growing old.... I haven't gone willingly.

 

[Mimi13]

For those of you who even have the interest to look at these images, you should know that while I’ve been selecting which pictures to use I have also been eating BBQ pork skins. I may be a tad touched, ya think?

So here goes the photos of the masses in Blanca’s liver. I will explain things with the picture as to what I was actually seeing, etc.

Spoiler: Liver Masses Explored

I’m not sure how to describe each area without marking the photo, but I didn’t want to mark over something that might be important. I was trying to capture the color difference in this mass. The upper right “crescent” that has a 3D look to it was very hard. The remaining part was squishy. Out of six different masses, two had a mixed consistency.

The mass in the middle of the lobes was like the one shown above, a double consistency.

I started cutting with one of the hard masses. Cutting through it was very similar to cutting through a toughly cooked piece of liver. The lighter section was the color of cooked liver.

This picture is of the squishy mass in the middle. I sliced through the very edge of the bubble and mashed on the edge. The inside was not a liquid, but more like a pudding.

This picture shows the indention in the mass after I mashed some of the gooey stuff out.

I cut this mass open. The bottom section was like a firmly set pudding, whereas the top (that squished out) had the consistency of a thinner pudding. I’m sorry the only analogies I can think of are food related.

Just another shot of the bubble-topped mass.

A cross section of the right lobe. It looks normal to me.

This is the large mass that was connected to the front of the right lobe. When I sliced into the hard part, I pulled the small cutoff section back and it shows an indention in the liver. This particular mass was not fused together with the “healthy” section of the liver like the others were. It was very easily separated.

The congealed portion of the mass easily plopped our from under the mass “skin.”

This shot shows the mass opened up. This particular mass was the largest and had the circumference of a quarter.

I wish I knew more about this type stuff and I will say if another one of my birds presents with the same symptoms as Blanca did, I will send the body to the state lab for professional testing.

I did send an email, as some suggested, to the guy managing the necropsies for the state of Alabama. Who knows what might transpire? I don’t, but I do know little Blanca is no longer suffocating.

 

[TwoCrows]

I don't know enough about livers either but it definitely doesn't look normal to me...

Nor does eating pork skins and looking at pictures of chopped up livers.

Seriously, thats really all that matters, that she is no longer suffering.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

LOL Nothing like a good cup of coffee to view your photos!

It's interesting for sure, but sadly I still have no idea what/why the liver looks like that.
Let us know if you get a reply to your email. I would be interested to find out more though!

 

[Mimi13]

LOL Nothing like a good cup of coffee to view your photos!

It's interesting for sure, but sadly I still have no idea what/why the liver looks like that.
Let us know if you get a reply to your email. I would be interested to find out more though!

I wish I did have the knowledge to know what I was looking at, but the drawback to that would be I would most likely be sitting in a sterile environment right now and not out watching my juvenile cockerel getting a beakful of feathers as he tries to figure out this mating thing. And then when he fails and falls off he gets his butt nailed from the poor victim and four of her BFF’s!

I really do love my life and not knowing is fine, but it still leaves me a bit curious.

I really doubt that I hear anything from Leland Neuhring, Necropsy and Histology Section Head at Alabama Dept of AGI, but I can always hope. Regardless, this last incident has put a little bit more experience in my back pocket.

I have a huge THANKS for all of y’all being there when I reached out for advice. Y’all are relentless in your efforts to help everyone. It’s stuff like this that make BYC the wonderful place it is.

@TwoCrows @Eggcessive @speckledhen

 

[TwoCrows]

You are so welcome!

The learning never stops with chickens. Just when you think you know something or everything, it all can turn around and bite you in the behind! And it's fun to keep learning, I thrive on it. Many times there are questions that I have no answers to, as in your liver issues here, you may never know what all this means. But there has been a ton of learning on your part, more than you know right now. You have so much curiosity, soon you will be a walking encyclopedia! Chickens are just such interesting creatures inside and out. I am glad you are enjoying yourself!

 

[TwoCrows]

And you know what else? Many of these folks that are sitting in a sterile environment staring at chickens livers really don't know as much as the farmer sitting watching his chickens do what they do! Hands on experience can be much more in depth than someone that got their knowledge from a book. It's easy to memorize symptoms and disease during text book learning, but to diagnose it and explore it yourself really hits it home.

 

[speckledhen]

And you know what else? Many of these folks that are sitting in a sterile environment staring at chickens livers really don't know as much as the farmer sitting watching his chickens do what they do! Hands on experience can be much more in depth than someone that got their knowledge from a book. It's easy to memorize symptoms and disease during text book learning, but to diagnose it and explore it yourself really hits it home.

Amen to this 100x over! I venture to say that I have seen some stuff veterinarians have never seen nor understand. That's not bragging, just weird experience. Like the thyrogenous dwarfism and having had birds actually tested genetically, finding something new and crazy, that a bird can actually be a double dwarf gene carrier and not be a dwarf, something that was supposedly impossible. But, there it was. There is still a lot not known, I'm sure. And chickens don't read the veterinary manuals.