Ideas concerning sudden hen death? (Warning: photos)

[Nashville Hen Mom]

Nashville hen mom, I'm sorry about your hen dying. We just had the same thing happen tonight-similar description (seemed fine, hot day, suddenly died) and also a SLW (i noticed someone wondered if something is going on with this breed).
We didn't open her up and buried her so too late but if you come upon anything that sheds light on what happened, would you post? I'm concerned about the others (5 remaining) and will watch them carefully but it's hard to not have a sense of what might have happened.
(if anyone knows of a live link for "Sudden death report" and/or can redirect I'd appreciate it. As noted, the one referred to in another post doesn't work). thanks.

I am so sorry to hear this and hope that the rest of your flock is okay. After reading several journal articles and general discussions about the syndrome, it was me who kept seeing SLW birds mentioned. Here is one such link:

https://hencam.com/henblog/2015/07/fatty-liver-disease-in-hens/

The comment following that article sounds just like what happened to us and refers to a SLW. I did not feed anything except for premium organic layer pellets (though I did notice the first ingredient was corn, an ingredient that is discouraged in many discussions) and occasional (like maybe a couple of cups per week) of squash seeds and pulp or tomato/strawberry scraps. They also liked a few mealworms at night if I had to put them in early. All the birds were active foragers so I only filled their feeder about once a week. Due to some of the things I have been reading, I have increased the protein in their diet by being a bit more generous with the mealworms as I see that their feed is only 16% protein and one recommendation is to increase it to 17.5%.

I am curious whether your hen was an active layer. Ours was. Did she appear overweight? Ours did not. Also, how old was your girl?

Here is another very good and helpful article:
http://www.poultrydvm.com/condition/fatty-liver-syndrome

Here is the link to the Sudden death report, though I didn't find it very helpful:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/sudden-death-diagnosed.1184523/

We only have two remaining birds who are also heavy breeds of the same age. They were definitely not themselves, as it is apparent that they were aware of our loss. I have spent extra time holding them, talking to them, and just being close by while I do garden chores. Over the last couple of days they seem a little more like their old selves. We ordered two new hens to arrive next week and will have a new challenge to face...

 

[Nashville Hen Mom]

@Nashville Hen Mom

Well done for having a look inside your girl. I know it is not an easy thing to do, especially if you have an emotional attachment. Did you take any more photos or expose any of the organs to check them individually?
It is normal for hens in laying condition to have a pad of yellow fat on their abdomen. What you don't want to see is it encasing their organs, particularly the heart and gut. Fatty liver Syndrome will usually show up in the liver which will often be discoloured or mottled.
I'm wondering if the orange coloured tissue is actually a mass of egg yolks that have been laid internally and deposited in the hens abdomen.... was there a lot of fluid too when you cut into the abdominal cavity? Feeling extremely heavy is a very common and tell tale symptom of internal laying and ascites (water belly), but if she had been laying regularly, that would more or less rule it out.... can you be sure you were getting eggs from her until very recently....she might still have been going into the nest box and singing the egg song, but the egg not actually coming out. That amount of egg yolks would have taken some time (usually months) to build up inside her and solidify and once they start internally laying, the weight of the mass usually pulls things so far out of alignment that they never lay eggs properly again, so being sure that she was laying within the past couple of weeks at least, would rule that diagnosis out..... she would still have the red comb appearance of a hen that is laying because she was still ovulating, just that the eggs were dropping into her abdominal cavity instead of travelling into the oviduct to be surrounded in albumen and a shell and laid properly.
It is unfortunate that I have only just come upon this thread as I appreciate it will now probably be too late to request further photos. Did the orange matter feel like it was made up of lobes that could have been squashed semi solidified egg yolks? And was it located low down between her legs?

If she was laying internally (this is very different to being egg bound) the build up of mass and usually fluid puts a huge strain on the internal organs including the heart, lungs and intestines. A hot day might be all it needed to make that pressure more than her organs could cope with and she probably died from a heart attack.

Thank you so much for your information! I really didn't think that I could do this to my beloved pet, but I felt that it was important to rule out communicable disease. Also, I am a pharmacist and had to do this stuff in school. I did poke around at the other organs (I had an internet link with very good pictures that helped guide me through). The yellow matter was surrounding all the organs. She also had fat around her belly. The intestines looked good and the liver honestly looked relatively normal as well.

Luckily, our birds all laid distinctively different looking eggs so we kept good track of who laid when. Matilda laid three out of the four days preceding her demise, including the day immediately before. Any thoughts?

 

[rebrascora]

Did the orange/yellow matter strike you as eggy at all or did it just feel like fat? It's so difficult to get any sense of texture just from a photo. My gut feeling is that it wasn't Fatty Liver Syndrome. The diet and amount of exercise...free ranging and laying regularly would all suggest otherwise. If you had been feeding masses of scratch and the birds confined to a pen, I could have understood it, but they had a healthy diet and lifestyle and she apparently had a healthy looking liver. One of those times when you want to reach into your computer screen and have a rummage around in the chicken and see and feel and even smell for yourself.... but then maybe not after a few days now!

Sorry I can't really offer any other suggestion.

 

[Trishkabob]

Thank you so much for your information! I really didn't think that I could do this to my beloved pet, but I felt that it was important to rule out communicable disease. Also, I am a pharmacist and had to do this stuff in school. I did poke around at the other organs (I had an internet link with very good pictures that helped guide me through). The yellow matter was surrounding all the organs. She also had fat around her belly. The intestines looked good and the liver honestly looked relatively normal as well.

Luckily, our birds all laid distinctively different looking eggs so we kept good track of who laid when. Matilda laid three out of the four days preceding her demise, including the day immediately before. Any thoughts?

This is pretty amazing-in addition to all of the other similarities of what happened to each of our girls, ours was also named Matilda! That's pretty weird, no?
To answer your questions: she was not quite a year old, had laid that morning I think (our eggs aren't quite as distince as yours but hers were rounder than the others and a little smaller; we, too, have heavy breeds...2 barred rocks, a buff orpington and a plymouth rock), seemed fine when I let them out in the morning. My husband thinks she was often thirstier than the others but I never noticed that (he lets them out the a.m. more than I do and said she often went right for water).
She wasn't overweight to look at, in fact was small for an SLW and not as vibrant in her coloring, but she so hated being picked up, I can't compare to holding her after she died (which felt nomal relative to what I'd expect). She was very hot when my husband first picked her up and tried to revive her. That's all we have. I admire you for opening yours up. I never had to do that in school so wouldn't have had the skill but it must have been hard nonetheless.
Our others saw her after she died and investigated (I made sure they didn't peck her but they were close)...they seem fine and I just don't know what animals "think" when they see one dead.
Good luck with your new ones...it's a good salve to have chicks.