Chicken Autopsy Results (WARNING: very graphic pictures)

[Lucysmom002]

I agree. Thanks for sharing and for having the courage to do that. I lost one this morning and it drives me nuts wondering WHY.
I'm sorry about your chicken loss.

 

[Blue_Myst]

Thanks for all the input, guys! It sounds like she had something seriously wrong with her lungs, possibly complicated by cancer.

Now that I think about it, the lungs could be a little darker because I had severed several veins/arteries to get to them and blood had been pooling in the chest cavity for a little while. But even after rinsing them to get a better look, they were very far from pale pink.

Thanks again! Knowing what most likely did it gives me a little peace of mind.

 

[Illia]

Love the photos, love that you took the time to do that.

I think there's quite a few oddities about her, but honestly, I've never run across lungs like hers. The weird growths are another thing too. . . . The interesting mystery is what actually caused death. A chicken can go on with many issues, but only one will actually cause death, often something that was never there before (clot causing heart attack, etc)

 

[tiki244]

So sorry about your hen

and thank you for your post (no pun intended). I will bookmark this for future reference.

 

[Saltysteele]

the clot in the lungs, is more than likely postmortem. the blood sits in one spot and clots. if you pour it into a container, it will clot and turn to jello. people with atrial fibrillation will take blood thinners to try to prevent clotting. their heart is pumping fully, and some blood may just kind of sit in one area and start to clot, which can then move to other parts of the body.

also, almost immediately after something dies, the blood and fluids in the tissues start to pool in the lowest portion of the body. people, animals (growing up on a hog farm, i saw pigs all the time), everything. the upper portion of the body will be pale and dusky, the portion closest to the ground will be purple. gravity. so, if your chicken was laying on one side, the lung on that side may have had blood pooling in and around it.

my suspicion, especially since you said the chicken was gasping for air, was the growths in its neck.

the white spots on the liver are suspicious, as well as the fatty liver (fat in the liver tissue)

 

[BrazellDazell]

WoW! So interesting I thank you for being brave enough to do that also. I think it is very clear your intentions were backed with love and wondering what happened. Thank you for posting I feel a little smarter. I AM very sorry about your hen

 

[chkn]

I think sometimes a little infection in the lungs can close itself off and make it difficult for the antibiotics to get rid of. It's like you can keep them on antibiotics and keep on increasing the amount but eventually the infection takes them down.

 

[krissteff]

I was terrified to open this thread when I saw the warning, but figured it would help in desensitizing myself to these types of things. It was VERY informative!! I'm so glad I opened it!
I don't think I'd be able to do an autopsy on any of my girls, but I think you're incredibly courageous for doing it.

 

[cliffsdad]

That's great! I think it's awesome that you are so concerned about your chickens health. (and curious enough to do an autopsy!) My 4 year old son and I often look at all the parts when I butcher.(I know, gross, right?!) It's a great learning experience and I think it makes him even more curious about how living creatures are different/same. I think the things you pointed out are all suspect but the two growths seem very strange and I've never seen them in any turkey or chicken I've butchered. Also, my birds weren't as old as your chicken so maybe that's why. Good job Quincy Adams!

 

[lampshadeee69]

i know the insides and outsides of chickens like the back of my hand, because it is my job to kill, clean, and process poultry. the heart did have some fibrous portions around the pericardium (sac around the outside of the heart) and did look larger than normal, but i think that was because it was working extra hard to pump blood. the reason it was working harder was because of the growths. as said before, blood clots when it stops moving, so the blood in the heart had nothing to do with the cause of death. that liver does have some damage in it, i suspect cancer there. the black dot is consistent with cancer in other animals. i have seen a rabbit with liver cancer, and it had one large black area and white globs all over. the white globs seem to be starting to form on the left lobe in the middle. the liver is also starting to become fatty, but it isn't an issue. the gizzard was completely healthy, looked just like a gizzard i would buy in the store. the ovaries are full of blood, but that may be just because she was laying on her back and that is where the blood pooled. they are normally not that red, they actually look like little egg yolks inside the chicken, but then again, i have no experience with older birds. I don't know if they just get redder when they age. anyways, the ovaries are of no concern to the cause of death. What you called the right kidney was actually the spleen of the chicken. Chicken spleens normally look like thick, red lima beans, so this one really surprised me. (in case you wondered, the kidneys are lodged in the back of the chicken's "pelvis". they do not come out when a bird is cleaned because it is too difficult to scrape them out. they are about 2 inches long and a half inch wide and are tapered at one end. the other end is rounded off. they are granular in texture and dark red, like the color of the liver.) there is a cancerous growth on the spleen, too, as shown in the first picture of it at the bottom. The lungs do look like they were damaged by a previous infection and have scarred over. they, too, have characteristic cancerous yellow-whitish growths on them. the two growths you found inside the body, too, are extremely abnormal. I would speculate either tumors (bone), food that somehow escaped and clumped together, or calcium deposits; all three of which could be deadly. Now i cannot say for certain what the cause of death was because I wasn't present for the autopsy, so I didn't get to examine the bird more thoroughly. I realize that it would be impossible to examine the body any more because it has since decomposed, but a cranial exam would have been helpful to see if any cancer had metastasized to the brain, and a better look at the bowels would have been nice too. combining all of my knowledge I would likely say that cancer that formed in the liver killed your poor hen by metastasizing and compressing the fragile structures of the neck (trachea, jugular vein, and carotid artery), preventing blood flow/oxygen from entering or leaving the brain. i could of course be wrong because i don't have any slides of any of the offending organs to confirm cancer, but i am pretty sure that's what did it. does your flock have any history of marek's disease? It can cause cancer in chickens if they survive the initial infection. Another possibility for the genesis of the cancer would be arsenic. I believe this news article can shed some light on the subject. http://www.infowars.com/fda-finally-admits-chicken-meat-contains-cancer-causing-arsenic/ I am sorry for your loss, it happens to even the best chickens and cuts their lives tragically short. in case anyone was wondering, too, I know all this information because i like to watch Dr. G, Medical Examiner. I learned a lot about necropsies from that show.