Heart attack?

[jmurno]

This morning I found a cornish cross rooster dead on its back just outside the coop ramp. My guess is that he came out, fell off the edge of the ramp onto his back, and died of a heart attack.
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his liver was a grayish reddish color. Not the bright dark red that I am used to. Do you think this could have been from him lying dead for a couple hours before I found him? Or is this coloration a sign that he might have been sick?
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All the other organs looked fine except the heart seemed to have one side that was quite limp and weak -- not hard but kind of like a loose flap of skin.
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The rooster was 8.5 weeks old and weighed around10 pounds. Is that weight too much for 8.5 weeks old?

What do you guys think, does heart attack seem probable?

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Cx are famed for eating themselves to death - the same genetics that allow for that extremely fast body wieght gain don't allow time for the skeletal system, the heart, and the lungs to catch up. last numbers I saw were that commercial Cx farms for meat still lost between 1:30 and 1:17 primarily to "failure", in spite of efforts to control humidity and moderate temperatures through forced air circulation.

So yes, its probable. Without seeing more (first hand, photos can be deceptive) I can't offer more definite - but in the more likely than not? Yes its a better guess than many. If there was significant intracavity fat, and the stripe of fat over the heart looked more like a 3+ or 4" belt on a pair of jeans than a skinny 80s tie, that would also support the hypothesis. (Note this is one of my dual purpose birds, not a Cx. You do expect more fat in a Cx, its simply not desired for my birds with my needs, so I keep mine just a little lean.)

 

[Geena]

I've never had it happen but I've heard that sometimes a large cornishX can "turtle", or fall onto their back and not be able to right themselves, and then suffocate.

 

[Folly's place]

Yes, and the poster on this sight who was doing Cornish chickens talked about this issue with some of the big cockerels. His birds were purebreds, not Cornishx.
Cornishx birds are fragile in so many ways!