After calling the college, I finally got a copy of the necropsy report emailed to me. A lot of what is in here is not what was said during the phone call after the Vet had finished the necropsy and right now I don't know what to think. I'll put it here and maybe you can get something out of it that I may be missing.
Species: Avian,Chicken
Black Jersey Giant hen, 22 weeks old, died Friday, Sept 21; arrived at the lab via mail on Sept. 26, necropsy on Sept. 27. body weight 1.5 lbs.; skin in the abdominal area was green-blueish discolored.
Breast muscles were thin and keel bone was prominent but firm and straight. Feathers below the vent were moderately soiled with fecal matter and urates.
The leg bones were firm and the feet clean. The beak was prominent. There was some mucus in the nasal passages.
Remnants of the thymus gland and bursa of Fabricius were of normal size for this age.
Cervical nerves, brachial, lumbar, sciatic plexus, Remaks and sciatic nerve showed no gross abnormalities.
Size and shape of the liver was normal. There was a small, lentil sized nodule on the ventral margin of the left liver lobe.
The spleen was slightly enlarged (in relation to the size of the bird) and mottled and pale. The ovary was underdeveloped for this age. The kidney was pale brown with no apparent lesions.
There a small amount of mucus in the trachea and bronchial bifurcation. The lungs were of normal pink color, but slightly edematous. There was one pinhead sized pale spot in the right lobe with a 1 mm wide reddish ring around it.
The bone marrow in the femur was pale.
There were no apparent lesions in the esophagus. The crop was filled with yellowish slightly moist mash resembling chicken feed. The lining of the esophagus, crop, and proventriculus was w/o apparent lesions. There was little feed in the gizzard and some grit pebbles.
The pancreas showed no apparent lesions.
The abdominal cavity was filled will rather large, moist and distended intestines and the wall of the mid section small intestines was reddish discolored. The intestines contained a moderate amount of mucus and small amount of undigested feed. The mucus of the midsection of the small intestines was of reddish color and contained a moderate to high amount of coccidia oocysts and some irregular crystals.
Summary of the Findings:
Intestinal coccidiosis
Anemia
No lesions suggestive of Marek’s disease
Severe retardation and loss of muscle mass
Conclusions:
None of the gross pathological lesions, including the coccidiosis, can fully explain the extremely severe retardation of the body size of the bird.
Marek’s disease was not the cause of death or retardation.
Drug overdosing may be a factor in the anemia.
Nutrient imbalance or deficiency in the feed may be a factor (feed sample analysis is recommended).
Other advices:
1. use of any vaccine other than Marek’s vaccines should be discontinued..
2. Use Chick starter feed medicated feed for 8 weeks; chick grower feed with 14 to 16% protein and coccidiosis medication up to 16 weeks and non-medicated feed thereafter.
3. Make sure feed and water is available ad lib for growing birds
4. Cull severely retarded birds. They will not catch up even under best circumstances and will remain seeders of problems, such as coccidia oocysts, because of their lower immune defenses.
The "other advices" they list here, although I'm sure to be sound, isn't so easy to follow after watchin' these birds struggle through ...
Sifting through the ninety-some posts yeilded that etymology report, which seems to confirm those strongest suspicions we were both havin' way back when (sorry for not responding throughout, but I'd been quickly checkin' in when I could).
The findings raise a few questions, from what I've seen ...
From what I have found, and despite what it suggests, the results themselves are consistent with what results when parasites continue to feed on what your chicken was meant to. The chemicals could have hindered development as well (i.e. blocking thiamine uptake to starve the coccidia may well result in a deficiency of B1 in the chicken, which is why my keets are gettin' the same supplimental feed that showbirds normally get). Also, there is one particular strain that the nodules appear from, but it's most often common to geese ... could it be that they've ruled out the actual one(s) that led to these later symptoms, just because it's not "as likely" as those commonly found w/in chickens?
As to the vet previously claiming that the bird(s) submitted "...had never been exposed [to Merek's]," having the bird die of other symptoms/causes is no guarantee that it was not a carrier of it -- wouldn't that be no different than if I claimed to have not been exposed to the most recent strain(s) of the flu, just because I didn't notice havin' any of the usual symptoms?
Again, I'm gonna say: You have done everything I coulda thought of, and far more than most woulda done. Even in hind-sight, it remains clear to me that this IS NOT your fault.
I noticed elsewhere you showed your respect for our elders, as you wondered why they often painted the walls and floors of hen houses -- that's where that ol' 1915 book comes in handy, although many of the things they did back then aren't even legal now (due to the chemicals involved). On
Page 204 of External Parasites, Diseases of Poultry, they suggest the first spray used is a repeated coatings containing kerosene or cresol, then "... the roosting boards, nests, floors and walls to a height of about 5 feet are thoroughly sprayed with the lice paint (kerosene oil and crude carbolic acid)."
After that, you might well be wonderin' how it is that I can find such an obsure little-known/unimportant detail as this, but can't seem to provide you with any real answers, for which I apologize. But, yours is likely one of those more isolated cases, where the infection(s) are aggrevated by the treatment(s), due to the common cure not affecting the true cause <-- sorta reminds me of the upcoming Presidential Election.
