Dying of Internal Laying??? Help Diagnose

[seminolewind]

My hen has not eaten in 2 weeks. She picks, drinks a little water, but that's it. She was wasting away with all kinds of food in front of her.
Otherwise healthy appearance and behavior. She had dark green diarrhea , and just wasted away.
Euthanized today .
I did a layman's necropsy.
Her gizzard was full of fibrous material and small stones. Kindof dryish.
She had laid a good egg 2 weeks ago. Then a shell less egg. Then nothing.
Inside, her egg tube had a few forming eggs in it, no shell. Her ovary had alot of mini eggs viewable, like not enclosed.
There were about 20 pea sized to marble sized eggs (?) connected all over the place inside her.
Her intestines -some were normal looking, some looked like they had a yellow coating or growth along one side of them.

There was no abdominal fluid building up. Just smooth yellow tissue here and there. I'm assuming fat.
Can anyone help ?

 

[CMV]

Impacted crop? The dark green diarrhea is indicative of high bile content meaning she wasn't eating. I am thinking that with all the dry, fibrous material in her crop she shouldn't be having green stools unless that stuff wasn't moving through.

Internal laying is pretty obvious with much egg material being found in the abdomen. It will look like mangled hard boiled egg yolks all through the abdominal cavity. It sounds like you found some fat, but that's it?

 

[seminolewind]

Quote:
Her crop was empty. Her gizzard was full. I know she wasn't eating, I'm wondering about the little pea/marble sized eggs all over her abdominal cavity, all attached to the walls.

 

[CMV]

The marble sized eggs- did they still have blood vessels apparent on them. I think they may have been in the process of maturing if they did. The few healthy laying hens I have processed had an abdomen full of those, but because the blood vessels were still evident I was assured that those were normal immature yolks that were in the middle of maturation. The only hen I came across that was an undiagnosed internal layer had a different kind of stuff in her abdomen. She was young still and had no signs of internal laying, but the evidence was inside her. She had this build up of what looked like boiled yolks in her. It was unmistakable.

 

[speckledhen]

Without seeing it, not sure I can give you an accurate assessment, Karen. I've never had an internal layer quit eating. They eat normally till close to the end, but they still waste away. Could be something completely unrelated to the reproductive system.

 

[seminolewind]

Thanks, Cynthia, I should have taken pictures. How dumb!

CMV, yes, they did have veins! There was no cooked egg like substance in her abdomen or oviduct (?)

 

[speckledhen]

Now, she may still have had egg yolk peritonitis, but can't say for sure. My first hen I lost to this just had loose yolk in her abdomen, not much else amiss, but the yolk was definitely where it shouldn't have been. After that, we knew more what we were looking for. One after the other had those cheesy masses inside, sometimes in the oviducts only, sometimes in the abdomen or both.