Help... New hen dropped dead

[Wi_Pida]

Update: According to a vet that responded on another forum I belong to, the brown patch between her skin and breast looks like it might have been a tumor (possible beginnings of cancer). He believes that since she hadn't been eating or drinking one of two things happened, 1 - she became weak and fell from her roost that was only 2-3 feet off the ground and broke her neck or 2 - she did have a heart attack even though her heart looked fine externally (I forgot to dissect it) fell from the roost and broke her neck.
In both cases he believed it was due to a broken neck caused by depression, not eating or drinking and someone throwing in a stray rooster in with them (something I had forgotten about).

Graphic pictures attached.

I got a 5 hens on Saturday. Tonight the blue copper maran was perched in the quarantine area with the other hens and when I came out of the existing flock hen house 15 minutes later she was laying on the ground dead. She showed no signs of illness except I haven’t seen any of them eat or drink. Otherwise she was quite a lively little girl. Anyway, I have been treating 3 of the girls for scaly legs mites, two of them have a slight case and one has a major case of it. She and the Americauna do not.

Anyway, I preformed a necropsy on her and am puzzled by 3 things that I found.
In photo 1 - why would the ceca be air filled instead of being fluid filled?
In photo 2 - Any idea if the brown spot is some type of tumor? As you see it is located between the breast bone and the skin?
Lastly,, in photo 3 below the lungs are a bunch of tiny pin head sizes clear balls. When I squeezed a couple some just were filled with clear fluid, while the others were hard.

I’ve done necropolises before and don’t ever recall seeing anything like this. I know she hadn’t eaten because there was no food in her crop and nothing in her intestines. The heart seemed fine and so did the rest of her organs. Is it possible that she had Marek’s? I’ve never seen a necropsy with it before. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.
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[ackie]

Wow you are a badass doing your own necropsy! I dont have a clue, but following because this is really cool.

 

[Wi_Pida]

My post seems to have gotten lost in all the new threads. Still need help please.

 

[LaFleche]

I am sorry you lost her.

Could you provide some more pictures of her organs, especially the liver?

When you opened her up, did you find fluids in her body cavity? If so, was it blood or yellow liquid?

She seems to have accumulated quite a fat pad, so some liver issue, maybe liver rupture could be the cause.

 

[LaFleche]

What was her age?
Did she lay?
How did her droppings look?
When was she last dewormed?

There are so many possibilities of what might have caused her sudden death, without further info we will not be able to help determining the possible cause.

If you want to know for sure, best send her to your state vet lab.

 

[BDutch]

You got her new. So maybe she just died from stress and not taken care of in a proper way by the previous owner. Whoever sells birds with scaly leg mites is not a carefull caretaker imo.

Good thing you placed them in quarantine. Sorry I have no real answers for you.

 

[Wi_Pida]

[/QUOTE]

I am sorry you lost her.

Could you provide some more pictures of her organs, especially the liver?

When you opened her up, did you find fluids in her body cavity? If so, was it blood or yellow liquid?

She seems to have accumulated quite a fat pad, so some liver issue, maybe liver rupture could be the cause.

When I opened her up and there was no unexpected fluid in the cavity. The only thing that I did find, now that I think about it a little bit more, is that it appears that she fell off the roost and broke her neck. The reason I say this is there was blood in her neck region and I did feel that there may have been a couple miss line vertebrates. So I believe that was the initial cause of death. She didn’t seem weak or anything even though she wasn’t eating. Why she wasn’t eating I am unsure, I guess it could be possible that she missed the rest of the flock mates. I still wonder though, that’s the full reason. I just never saw anything like those little pin head balls under her lungs or the tumor looking thing between her skin and chest bone. I did find out the sacks at the ends of the intestines are actually the ceca through my research. It’s where the water is held. Normally it would normally be filled with water but this time it was filled with air. Perplexing!!!

Anyway, here’s the rest of the pictures of the rest of the necropsy. It was kind of hard to take pictures so they’re not all that good. Having to do the photos and the necropsy with bloody hands was a bit difficult.

 

[LaFleche]

those little pin head balls

If you refer to what I marked red, these are her follicles in the ovary and it looks as if she was not laying, as with a laying hen there would be various sizes of different developments to be found.

 

[Wi_Pida]

You got her new. So maybe she just died from stress and not taken care of in a proper way by the previous owner. Whoever sells birds with scaly leg mites is not a carefull caretaker imo.

Good thing you placed them in quarantine. Sorry I have no real answers for you.

I can understand why you feel as if the previous owner was not properly taken care of them. When I talk to him about the scaly leg mites, he was unsure as to how to get rid of them and had been treating them with ACV. He thought it would do it. So he’s asked me to come over Thursday to check out the rest of his flock and show him how to care for them when they are ill. So I basically feel as if he’s just an uneducated in bird illnesses. I did take a look at his geese real quick and a few of his ducks in they looked really healthy. Same goes for his goats.

 

[Wi_Pida]

[/QUOTE]

If you refer to what I marked red, these are her follicles in the ovary and it looks as if she was not laying, as with a laying hen there would be various sizes of different developments to be found.
View attachment 2406052

Thank you. I’ve never done a necropsy on a hen that wasn’t laying. That makes perfect sense. I’m use to seeing developed yolks. The guy I got her from said that she was a year old and laying but she hadn’t laid an egg since I got her. So maybe the stress of the move and the loss of her buddy caused her not to eat. Maybe that’s why she fell from her roost?