Large Lump Inside Chicken Cavity

[Silkyhaven]

We had a hen that we noticed a swelling around the vent area up to the breast, to touch it felt like full of fluid not firm and it was.
We isolated it and feed Oil with some pollard as we thought it must be egg bound or something.
We then found the breast felt like it had no meat on it, so my husband butchered it and once he skinned it you could see the bottom half of this hen was huge.

When he pieced this lump area a very large amount of fluid came gushing out and the internal organs were awash with clear liquid.
He then checked the organs and found the stomach had a large grow attached to it, I mean bigger than the size of a cricket ball.
I have taken photos of this growth before he disposes of it, but I wonder if it is some sort of cancer growth.
It looked like it was stangling the stomach and therefore no food was getting into her stomach and her breast just shrunk in size.
She did have food in her crop so was eating.

Any ideas?
Cheers Barb

 

[Eggcessive]

Welcome to BYC. Cancer is fairly common in chickens, both with reproductive cancers and lymphomas of Mareks disease. Fluid in the abdomen (or ascites) is common with liver and heart issues in chickens, but I have also heard of it with egg yolk peritonitis and cancer. Posting your pictures in this thread would be informative. Usually you need 10 posts on BYC to be able to post pictures.

 

[Silkyhaven]

Thank you Eggcessive that is a relief then and we have had chickens for over 10 years and never seen it.
Do you mean I need 10 posts on this subject before I can include a picture?
Barb


Eggcessive:
"Welcome to BYC. Cancer is fairly common in chickens, both with reproductive cancers and lymphomas of Mareks disease. Fluid in the abdomen (or ascites) is common with liver and heart issues in chickens, but I have also heard of it with egg yolk peritonitis and cancer. Posting your pictures in this thread would be informative. Usually you need 10 posts on BYC to be able to post pictures."

 

[crazyfeathers]

That is something I would like to see as well. I like to learn. Welcome and best of luck.

 

[Silkyhaven]

Here are two of the shots, the first is the whole thing and the second we cut it open to see what was inside if not clear I can crop more.

 

[Silkyhaven]

That is something I would like to see as well. I like to learn. Welcome and best of luck.

Thanks Crazyfeathers, I am glad to have some constructive comments, as when checking this site I seen a lot of fooling around and wondered if it was serious. We too like to learn. Barb

 

[Eggcessive]

Thanks Crazyfeathers, I am glad to have some constructive comments, as when checking this site I seen a lot of fooling around and wondered if it was serious. We too like to learn. Barb

That's very interesting. Quite a few BYCers do necropsies on their own chickens. Castportpony does a lot, and posts pictures of hers on many threads. If you go on Forum and then drop down to Raising Backyard Chickens, you can then go on to the more serious threads like emergencies, raising baby chicks, managing your flock, coop design, and many more. There is quite a lot to choose from.

 

[crazyfeathers]

Wow that's horrible looking, it's so big, that poor girl. I am sorry you lost your hen. I appreciate your posting pics of the "cyst" we all need to learn and sometimes it's the hard way. I lost my buff orphinton, Alyssa, today. Tomorrow I am going to do an autopsy because I'm curious if it was old age or something else. I don't have any friends with chickens so I learn everything I can by observation and research. Again sorry about your girl and thank you for sharing.

 

[Silkyhaven]

Wow that's horrible looking, it's so big, that poor girl. I am sorry you lost your hen. I appreciate your posting pics of the "cyst" we all need to learn and sometimes it's the hard way. I lost my buff orphinton, Alyssa, today. Tomorrow I am going to do an autopsy because I'm curious if it was old age or something else. I don't have any friends with chickens so I learn everything I can by observation and research. Again sorry about your girl and thank you for sharing.

I know it was horrible, and I really felt for her and wondered how she was even alive. We breed and eat our chickens, but make sure they lead a very happy and healty life so this was very worrying for us. We do have friends that also breed and we showed them but no one knew what it was so I hit the net trying to find out. Cyst thank you.

 

[Silkyhaven]

That's very interesting. Quite a few BYCers do necropsies on their own chickens. Castportpony does a lot, and posts pictures of hers on many threads. If you go on Forum and then drop down to Raising Backyard Chickens, you can then go on to the more serious threads like emergencies, raising baby chicks, managing your flock, coop design, and many more. There is quite a lot to choose from.

Thank you for this I am new to this site but have used similar sites before, I will see what else I can find, I did see a pic of an ovary but this was different.
Again thank you for your help and sharing.