Determining cause of death - head tilt, weight loss, tummy rumbles, yellow diarrhoea

[jodievaughan]

Unfortunately, I opened the shed this morning to find my hen Nutmeg had passed away. I had taken her to the vet last week but they didn't know what the matter was and sent her away with steroids, which seemed to have no effect. A few weeks ago, she suddenly developed quite a severe robotic head tilting, but this went away in a matter of days. I thought perhaps she fell and sustained head trauma or something like that. However, she quickly lost a significant amount of weight and became quite weak to where she couldn't get up onto the perches and was sleeping on top of the nesting boxes instead. In her last few days, she was passing (apologies in advance) yellow, runny waste that smelt particularly foul, and would come to eat food but would barely eat any. Yesterday, she woke up with an impacted crop which I tried to massage away with some olive oil and critical care formula, and it actually did seem to help, the crop really loosened up through the day. There was a lot of rumbling coming from her insides. I was sure I saw a tiny translucent worm in her poo yesterday and so I got hold of a wormer but of course it's now too late.

I was reading and reading trying to figure out what she was going through as it was happening but I'm still not certain. Before I buried her, I checked her exterior over and I think I saw a red mite. It seems to me there might have been multiple issues going on. All of my other hens aren't showing any of the symptoms she was or any other symptoms for that matter. If anyone could share their insight into what they think might've happened to Nutmeg, I'd really appreciate it!

 

[ej1222]

 

[Eggcessive]

Sorry about losing Nutmeg. How old was she? It does sound like she may have had multiple issues, such as wry neck. That can be caused by a head injury, and can also be a sign of certain diseases and viruses, such as Mareks and others. Do you know if she was vaccinated for Mareks disease? Sour crop can cause starvation, and mites can cause anemia. I would check the others for signs of mites as well. A clear worm could have been a maggot. Did she have any around her vent? Flystrike is when fly larvae is deposited around a soiled vent or injury. If a body is kept cold right after dying and taken to the state vet, a necropsy may tell you the cause of death. If you lose another contact them. Hopefully, it was nothing contagious.