GRAPHIC PHOTO: Dark comb, lethargic, died within 2 days, full of liquid

[carlye828]

The hen was approximately 3 years old. Really stinks to loose her, she is one of my favorites and at the top of the pecking order. Friday evening, I noticed she was ick, loss of appetite and hanging out under the porch, which is all the girls favorite chill out spot, but she didn't want to come out. I made my husband go make sure she was alive and moving. This was the first sign of anything being wrong, she had come out to eat breakfast that morning and was her normal bossy self.

Saturday I went to check on her and besides being inactive, I noticed her comb was very dark. She also was passing very small amounts of clear-ish liquid. Her butt was an absolute mess, all her fluffy feathers were matted with her liquid poo. Her crop was empty.
The kids had been digging up my earthworms and feeding them to the chickens a couple weeks ago, which they got in trouble for, (I need those worms!) but I was thinking maybe she had internal parasites. I gave her some safe-guard Saturday evening and hoped she'd improve. She did eat the noodles and cabbage with the medicine, so I thought maybe I was overreacting. I tend to do that.

This morning she was dead. I decided to check her out for signs of internal parisites so I cut her open. The first thing that I noticed was that the lower part of her body was very swollen and firmly squishy. Her skin in that area was very red. It looked as if there was going to be puss, but there was no signs of that inside.



When I made a small cut in her muscle, a clear, yellow liguid, like human urine, started gushing out. There was probably about a pint total liquid.



After I opened her up more the liqid just started pouring out. I did not remove any organs, but I kind of poked around inside and did not see anything that raised an alarm. There was no egg. I thought I had taken more pictures, but I had a 4 year old helper and things got pretty messy after this, and there really wasn't much more to see that was unusual that I could tell.

I can not find anything about the body cavity being full of liquid. Does anyone know anything about this?

 

[katharine]

OMG this sounds like what is happening here. I am so worried. Do you know any more??

 

[carlye828]

Not really. It came on really quick and she was gone. I'm hoping someone can tell me if there was just something wrong with her that caused her internal leaking, or if this is something that I need to worry about my other girls.

So, this is happening to you also? The liquid collecting inside also?

 

[Island Roo]

I don't know much about it but try searching for Ascites

It happens in broilers - accumulation of fluids in the body cavity. Not sure what would cause it in a layer... google.

 

[katharine]

no but she looks off, she is slow and looks in pain when she walk, like stiff. She is hiding under a chair. Her crop is soft. She is passing bits of liquidy-poo. Her eyes look, I don't know..tired.

 

[carlye828]

I don't think Ascites is the culprit here. She showed no signs of respiratory problems at all, and she was well past the developing stage. But I will put that on the list of things to research further until I find out what happened, thanks.

 

[carlye828]

Katharine, is she an indoor chicken? How long has she been like that?

 

[Eggsoteric]

I would suspect cancer. I'm currently dealing with a hen that, initially, I thought ascites, however, because of the amount of fluid I've drained thus far from her abdomen and other sypmtoms, I now believe she has cancer. I'm so sorry for your loss.

 

[carlye828]

Thanks, sorry about your chicken also. I really think it's the fluid build-up pushing against her organs creating loss of blood flow, hence the dark comb, that caused sudden her death. I feel awful that I didn't realize what was wrong and hope she wasn't in too much pain. I am relieved, however, that (so far) it looks like this was an isolated incident and not something contagious that the other chickens, and ducks I have in the brooder, will catch also.

Sigh..... I told her to stop smoking.