Hen with hard mass

[cher1190]

Hello all, I had a hen a week ago that I felt had vent gleet so, I brought her in, soaked her in warm water bath and cleaned her up, I also felt for any obstruction/egg to make sure that wasn't the problem. When feeling around on her, there was this really hard mass that would be right around where you would feel an egg if it had been stuck, it was not movable at all. She stopped eating and drinking and passed away a few days later. My question is could she have had something else stuck, or a tumor etc? In the area I live we do not have any farm animal vets and I tried my best to treat her for the gleet. I used miconazole cream around her vent and tried to give her electrolytes with a syringe, although she wouldn't drink any of it. She was around 4 years old. I don't have pics to show.

 

[Eggcessive]

Sorry for your loss. When I lose a hen, I usually do a necropsy to look at the abdominal organs. A common illness is salpingitis which causes large hard egg masses in or out of the oviduct. These look like masses of cooked egg material, and are a product of inflammation or infection, and a common cause of death. Cancer of the oviduct is also common. So you may have felt an obstruction from one of those, more likely a large lash egg. Here is some info on lash eggs and salpingitis, and there are many graphic necropsy pictures available online if you want to do more research:
https://the-chicken-chick.com/salpingitis-lash-eggs-in-backyard/

 

[cher1190]

Ok, and thank you, I will do more research on both of those subjects, do you do the necropsy yourself? I wanted to, but was a little apprehensive as I have never done one before. We have butchered chickens as a family growing up on the farm, just never done anything like that before.

 

[Eggcessive]

Doing a necropsy is something I have learned. There are videos online that are a little more complex for poultry vets, but I do a fairly simple one. I open the abdomen from the vent, and look at any fluid present, the abdominal organs—liver, intestines and ceca, gizzard, spleen, and oviduct. Then if you want to, you can look for the kidneys, the gallbladder, heart, and lungs. Most state poultry vets will do a necropsy plus histology and testing for a fee. Here is a video on a necropsy where abdominal organs are labeled: