One of my Australorps suddenly dropped dead on Friday with no warning. We decided to have a look inside for learning purposes and to try to figure out what was wrong with her, especially if it points to anything that may affect the rest of the flock. She was just a couple of weeks past 1 year old so it was a bit of a shock. It was a very sudden death. She had laid an egg that day and was walking around foraging and dustbathing as normal not long before it happened.
She was an extremely heavy hen, close to 5.5kg. She was much bigger than the rest of the Australorp hens from the beginning of her life and was a similar weight to my roosters.
She did have some egg laying issues but I never thought it was anything serious. They have free access to oyster shell and layers pellets and they forage all day within an electric fence. We had some soft shelled eggs when they first started laying but ever since they all settled to normal laying, she was the only one who still occasionally laid soft shelled ones. It wasn't very often but when it happened, it would be multiples at a time, all from her. Her eggs also often had quite large calcium deposits and sometimes blood spots. Other than that, she seemed outwardly healthy and was the dominant hen in her flock.
Please excuse the poor quality job as it was a total first time. My husband did the cutting and I took the photos as best I could. We read the necropsy info in this article here and watched the video but, to be honest, I'm still confused about which organs we were actually looking at. It all looked so different to what we had seen on the video. If anyone can help with this, I'd really appreciate it. Also, in case it affects things, it was about 4 days after she died before we did this because we had to get some supplies. We kept her refrigerated in the meantime.
I've numbered the photos in case it helps if anyone has anything they can comment on any of them.
1.
2.
3. There was a large pool of dark liquid when we first opened her. It was on the right as we look at her, or her left.
4. Can anyone help tell me which organ that huge dark red thing is? I thought maybe liver but it's on the other side of the body to the one in the video.
5. And which organ is this with the lump and the yellowing on it?
6. And this one with an even bigger lump?
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14. Is this the heart?
15. As I said, we are novices at this but I can't help thinking that those dark lumps that are everywhere are not good, is that right? They seemed to be on multiple organs and also some just floating loose. They were not hard like stones but they were quite firm lumps.
16. Here are the contents of the gizzard.
17.
I'm afraid that's as far as we got. We didn't remove any organs other than the gizzard. I would be so grateful if any of you experienced with necropsies could help me learn from this.
She was an extremely heavy hen, close to 5.5kg. She was much bigger than the rest of the Australorp hens from the beginning of her life and was a similar weight to my roosters.
She did have some egg laying issues but I never thought it was anything serious. They have free access to oyster shell and layers pellets and they forage all day within an electric fence. We had some soft shelled eggs when they first started laying but ever since they all settled to normal laying, she was the only one who still occasionally laid soft shelled ones. It wasn't very often but when it happened, it would be multiples at a time, all from her. Her eggs also often had quite large calcium deposits and sometimes blood spots. Other than that, she seemed outwardly healthy and was the dominant hen in her flock.
Please excuse the poor quality job as it was a total first time. My husband did the cutting and I took the photos as best I could. We read the necropsy info in this article here and watched the video but, to be honest, I'm still confused about which organs we were actually looking at. It all looked so different to what we had seen on the video. If anyone can help with this, I'd really appreciate it. Also, in case it affects things, it was about 4 days after she died before we did this because we had to get some supplies. We kept her refrigerated in the meantime.
I've numbered the photos in case it helps if anyone has anything they can comment on any of them.
1.
2.
3. There was a large pool of dark liquid when we first opened her. It was on the right as we look at her, or her left.
4. Can anyone help tell me which organ that huge dark red thing is? I thought maybe liver but it's on the other side of the body to the one in the video.
5. And which organ is this with the lump and the yellowing on it?
6. And this one with an even bigger lump?
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14. Is this the heart?
15. As I said, we are novices at this but I can't help thinking that those dark lumps that are everywhere are not good, is that right? They seemed to be on multiple organs and also some just floating loose. They were not hard like stones but they were quite firm lumps.
16. Here are the contents of the gizzard.
17.
I'm afraid that's as far as we got. We didn't remove any organs other than the gizzard. I would be so grateful if any of you experienced with necropsies could help me learn from this.
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