Butchered female full of yolks

[haley0489]

I had a newly laying (just turned 6 weeks on Tuesday) coturnix prolapse today. It was pretty severe and I decided it was best to go ahead and butcher her. Inside she had 14 full-size yolks.

Is so many yolks normal? I would have thought that there’d only be a few in production at a time.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Where were they located?
Abdomen or were you looking at normal well placed ovaries?

Quail reproductive system is like chicken's - when you butcher them you will see a cluster of ovum (yolks), these will eventually enter the reproductive system and be laid as an egg. A female Quail (or chicken) is hatched with all the eggs (ovum) formed in her body that she will/can/could/should lay within her lifetime. So you *should* see tiny yolks, but they will be in a cluster (see first link, just imagine them Quail size). Second link, shows Quail ovum in the very last set of photos at the bottom of page.

Now, if you found the yolks "loose" or floating in the abdomen, then she was internally laying.



https://poultry.extension.org/articles/poultry-anatomy/avian-reproductive-female/


https://nri.tamu.edu/learning/wildlife/the-anatomy-of-a-quail/

 

[haley0489]

Where were they located?
Abdomen or were you looking at normal well placed ovaries?

Quail reproductive system is like chicken's - when you butcher them you will see a cluster of ovum (yolks), these will eventually enter the reproductive system and be laid as an egg. A female Quail (or chicken) is hatched with all the eggs (ovum) formed in her body that she will/can/could/should lay within her lifetime. So you *should* see tiny yolks, but they will be in a cluster (see first link, just imagine them Quail size). Second link, shows Quail ovum in the very last set of photos at the bottom of page.

Now, if you found the yolks "loose" or floating in the abdomen, then she was internally laying.



https://poultry.extension.org/articles/poultry-anatomy/avian-reproductive-female/


https://nri.tamu.edu/learning/wildlife/the-anatomy-of-a-quail/

I’m going to attach a photo (graphic)

I expected to see the white cluster of immature eggs. This is only one shot, so you can’t see them all, but there were 14, full sized yellow yolks, plus a few smaller yellow ones, and of course the immeasurable white ones.

I have only ever butchered roos, so this is not what I’m used to seeing.

 

[Nabiki]

That looks normal to me. If anything, I would have expected more, and larger ones too.

 

[haley0489]

That looks normal to me. If anything, I would have expected more, and larger ones too.

Really! I was stunned by finding 14 and thought she must have been a mutant

I hated to put her down, but I doubted my ability to get her thru prolapse. I did what I thought was most humane.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I’m going to attach a photo (graphic)

I expected to see the white cluster of immature eggs. This is only one shot, so you can’t see them all, but there were 14, full sized yellow yolks, plus a few smaller yellow ones, and of course the immeasurable white ones.

I have only ever butchered roos, so this is not what I’m used to seeing.

Really! I was stunned by finding 14 and thought she must have been a mutant

I hated to put her down, but I doubted my ability to get her thru prolapse. I did what I thought was most humane.

Looks normal to me as well.

Prolapses can be tricky, some can be corrected, others can't. I have encountered both fixable and not- it's sad to put a bird down, but sometimes it has to be done.

 

[Charlie Wooster]

I had one last week.. didn’t catch it early enough and had to cull.. it happens.. you did the right thing.. yolks look normal to me.. no need to be alarmed.