As regards tips for necropsy, I don't use any fancy tools, just a kitchen knife and a pair of scissors and a set of pruning shears to cut through and remove the rib cage.
It helps if you dip the bird in water first and/or pluck or trim feathers on the breast/abdomen so that you can see clearly and feathers don't get everywhere. It helps to pop both the hip joints out so that the carcass is more stable and you have more room to move. I make a small cross cut incision just below the breast bone as there is little risk of cutting through the gut at this point. Once you cut through the skin and thin muscle tissue into the abdominal cavity, you can then cut across to both hips and then down towards the vent making a kind of inverted bib with the belly skin and muscle and exposing the gut. Then use the pruning shears to cut up towards the neck through the ribs at either side, carefully avoiding nicking any organs and lift off the breast bone and rib cage to reveal the thoracic cavity where the heart, lungs and liver etc are. I would suggest you take photos of the organs in situ as well as individually after removal. If you watch some videos on You Tube of people eviscerating chickens during the butchering process, you will get an idea of what to expect and what is normal. There should not be fluid or blood sloshing around inside them. There should not be layers of thick yellow fat the colour of egg yolks around the abdomen and organs, You should be able to handle the liver without it breaking apart and it should be a nice smooth even ox blood sort of colour. If you encounter the above then your girl almost certainly died of fatty liver haemorrhagic syndrome.
Other things to look out for are tumours on the heart or lungs which can look like pinkish white fatty lumps, usually with a blood supply system. The lungs are tucked in between the ribs at the very back of the thoracic cavity. They should be bright pink and spongy textured and shaped to fit between the ribs with 3 distinct lobes.
The gizzard is the hard round gold ball sized opalescent organ above the liver. If you cut the digestive tract just above that, you should be able to remove the gizzard, liver, spleen and lower digestive tract away from the carcass and lay it out with only the vent end remaining attached to the chicken. The reproductive system should be visible below the liver and intestines. The ovary is surprisingly uncontained and you should be able to see the undeveloped and developing follicles at varying stages of ripening if she was in lay or point of lay. You should also be able to identify her oviduct leading from the ovary through several twists and turns to the vent. The kidneys are tucked into indentations in the spine similar to the lungs but in the pelvis and they are also lobed and of a colour you would expect, similar to the liver.
I don't generally inspect the trachea or upper digestive tract ie mouth, oesophagus, crop etc unless there has been some symptom to indicate a problem there The final thing I do with a necropsy (because it can become messy and smelly) is to palpitate the length of the gut for any roundworms. You canusually feel large roundworms through the gut wall. Adults are about 2 inches long and 1/8 inch thick. If you feel any during palpitation, then cut open to confirm and finally check the ceca for worms by cutting open.... this is by far the most unpleasant bit.... hence doing last.
I prefer to do necropsies outdoors or possibly in a green house or poly tunnel, where light is good and flies will be less bad, but obviously not if it is baking hot in there. I would not personally consider doing one in the house.
I think that is probably all the help I can give. I do it on an old feed bag so that it can all be easily rolled up and disposed of afterwards. Things don't have to be overly clean or sterile because you are not going to eat the meat, so don't worry about anything like that, it is just rough and ready.
Good luck and hopefully it will be something straightforward that we can easily figure out.
It helps if you dip the bird in water first and/or pluck or trim feathers on the breast/abdomen so that you can see clearly and feathers don't get everywhere. It helps to pop both the hip joints out so that the carcass is more stable and you have more room to move. I make a small cross cut incision just below the breast bone as there is little risk of cutting through the gut at this point. Once you cut through the skin and thin muscle tissue into the abdominal cavity, you can then cut across to both hips and then down towards the vent making a kind of inverted bib with the belly skin and muscle and exposing the gut. Then use the pruning shears to cut up towards the neck through the ribs at either side, carefully avoiding nicking any organs and lift off the breast bone and rib cage to reveal the thoracic cavity where the heart, lungs and liver etc are. I would suggest you take photos of the organs in situ as well as individually after removal. If you watch some videos on You Tube of people eviscerating chickens during the butchering process, you will get an idea of what to expect and what is normal. There should not be fluid or blood sloshing around inside them. There should not be layers of thick yellow fat the colour of egg yolks around the abdomen and organs, You should be able to handle the liver without it breaking apart and it should be a nice smooth even ox blood sort of colour. If you encounter the above then your girl almost certainly died of fatty liver haemorrhagic syndrome.
Other things to look out for are tumours on the heart or lungs which can look like pinkish white fatty lumps, usually with a blood supply system. The lungs are tucked in between the ribs at the very back of the thoracic cavity. They should be bright pink and spongy textured and shaped to fit between the ribs with 3 distinct lobes.
The gizzard is the hard round gold ball sized opalescent organ above the liver. If you cut the digestive tract just above that, you should be able to remove the gizzard, liver, spleen and lower digestive tract away from the carcass and lay it out with only the vent end remaining attached to the chicken. The reproductive system should be visible below the liver and intestines. The ovary is surprisingly uncontained and you should be able to see the undeveloped and developing follicles at varying stages of ripening if she was in lay or point of lay. You should also be able to identify her oviduct leading from the ovary through several twists and turns to the vent. The kidneys are tucked into indentations in the spine similar to the lungs but in the pelvis and they are also lobed and of a colour you would expect, similar to the liver.
I don't generally inspect the trachea or upper digestive tract ie mouth, oesophagus, crop etc unless there has been some symptom to indicate a problem there The final thing I do with a necropsy (because it can become messy and smelly) is to palpitate the length of the gut for any roundworms. You canusually feel large roundworms through the gut wall. Adults are about 2 inches long and 1/8 inch thick. If you feel any during palpitation, then cut open to confirm and finally check the ceca for worms by cutting open.... this is by far the most unpleasant bit.... hence doing last.
I prefer to do necropsies outdoors or possibly in a green house or poly tunnel, where light is good and flies will be less bad, but obviously not if it is baking hot in there. I would not personally consider doing one in the house.
I think that is probably all the help I can give. I do it on an old feed bag so that it can all be easily rolled up and disposed of afterwards. Things don't have to be overly clean or sterile because you are not going to eat the meat, so don't worry about anything like that, it is just rough and ready.
Good luck and hopefully it will be something straightforward that we can easily figure out.
