First birthday today & she died

[Relleoms]

Our girl Maude would be celebrating her first birthday today, but I found her dead in the coop this morning. There were no signs or symptoms, and she laid an egg yesterday. We brought her to the university for a necropsy, but is it possible she died from stress? I cleaned the coop yesterday, we had trees planted and the farmer next door planted his field, so there were a lot of noises & machines. I’m heartbroken. RIP, Maude, and happy birthday

 

[Clubber1234]

so sorryHow old was she?

 

[Relleoms]

One year old today

 

[Eggstatic1727]

So sorry for your loss. It's never easy.

 

[Relleoms]

So the preliminary necropsy results show she died of hemorrhagic liver due to fatty liver disease caused by obesity. So now to figure out how to keep the rest of my flock alive. Thing is, she weighed less than 5 lbs & free ranged almost all day. Plus they very rarely get treats other than seed that’s fallen from the wild bird feeders and an occasional scrambled egg. I’m hoping my vet can offer some suggestions.

 

[Ducksandchickens]

Yes. Asking your vet is the best thing you can do

 

[Duckstail]

Sorry for your loss...That's crazy didnt think chickens can get nash.

A human only needs to lose 3-7% body fat to start reversing nash. I just a small diet will probably work! Maybe a bit less protein?

 

[Trish1974]

I am so sorry for your loss. She was a beautiful bird.

 

[Relleoms]

Sorry for your loss...That's crazy didnt think chickens can get nash.

A human only needs to lose 3-7% body fat to start reversing nash. I just a small diet will probably work! Maybe a bit less protein?

I suppose I can google it, but what is nash?!?

You mention protein; I mixed starter/grower with all flock a few weeks ago since we have 8 week olds with the one year olds. I wonder if that increase in protein was too much? How quickly can it develop? They’re transitioning to 100% all flock.

We’ve decided to remove the wild bird feeders and give zero treats other than fermented feed. Our vet won’t be in until Monday, so we’ll do what we can for now & hope for the best!

Thank you all for your kind words!

 

[Duckstail]

Nash's non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Happens to humans who are overweight. In humans its caused by poor diet and exercise. High cholesterol, high fat, high protein, these just to name a few.

Pretty much the liver has too much fat around it doesn't work properly and can lead to a lot of other issues. Liver like most organs is very important, the list of illnesses that could come from this is long.

Pretty much you got to exercise and feed your waterfowl not So Much Junk Food it looks like? It's tough for me to diagnose because I was under the impression that these feeds we're pretty decent and not so much junk in it!

How much "junk food' do they get? What was her weight compared to the weight that she should be?
This was definitely something to go overover your vet on how she was able to become obese.

Alternatively she could have be diabetic, not sure if chickens can become diabetic but that is an aftermath of fatty liver disease as well.

Hope this was able to help a little bit definitely do some research yourself it's something you should know as a human as well! And definitely go over it with your vet!!