Lethargic, Hiding Australorp

[Arthaey]

Sad update: the Australorp died early this morning. She never did develop any signs or symptoms beyond extreme lethargy.

We will try to send the body to get a necropsy test done — but apparently creating an account with the state lab involves a manual approval step, so it may or may not happen soon enough to be useful to us.

We will definitely be keeping an eye on the rest of the flock for a while, obviously.

Another possibility is a reproductive infection or internal laying.

We had wondered about this, although we had not seen any unusual poop. We also wondered about an internal injury, but again, hard to know for sure.

 

[azygous]

A few months ago I had a one-year old Blue Andelusian die suddenly with no outward symptoms. I did a home necropsy and discovered she had been internally laying.

I'm sorry you lost her. She seemed so sweet, I had fallen in love with her just watching her video.

 

[Arthaey]

A few months ago I had a one-year old Blue Andelusian die suddenly with no outward symptoms. I did a home necropsy and discovered she had been internally laying.

My sympathies that you've gone through something similar.

If we didn't hope to get some test results from the state lab, we'd do a home necropsy too, to look for obvious visible things like that. (We never did feel any hard lumps or distended abdomen, but who knows.)

I'm sorry you lost her. She seemed so sweet, I had fallen in love with her just watching her video.

Thank you. She was indeed a "crotchety but sweet" hen. I enjoyed hearing her "complaining" clucks all day long over nothing at all. All you had to do was look at her and she'd do that complainy noise. Like she was an old lady constantly judging you.

She was always trying to climb the pecking-order ladder, and for a brief glorious moment when one buff Orpington was raising chicks & the other was broody, she became alpha by default! However, as soon as the chicks got a little older, the Orpington reasserted her place, and then even the chicks started in on it!

But she would let you pick her up with a minimum of fuss, which was cool. I'll miss her, for sure.

 

[Arthaey]

Trying to find a silver lining here… We had a flock of 8 chickens, the maximum legally allowed in Seattle. With the 'Lorp this morning and our cockerel later today removed from the flock, at least we'll have room to get more chicks in the spring…

 

[azygous]

And we all know for a fact that new chicks is the antidote to grief over losing a chicken.

 

[Martha38]

Sad update: the Australorp died early this morning. She never did develop any signs or symptoms beyond extreme lethargy.

We will try to send the body to get a necropsy test done — but apparently creating an account with the state lab involves a manual approval step, so it may or may not happen soon enough to be useful to us.

We will definitely be keeping an eye on the rest of the flock for a while, obviously.



We had wondered about this, although we had not seen any unusual poop. We also wondered about an internal injury, but again, hard to know for sure.

Thats sad she lookd like a nice one sorry for your lost i understand . Keep us updated if you get the labs to see whatvwas wrong with her

 

[Stayc]

So sorry for your loss. She was a pretty girl.

 

[arthaey_hubby]

we got the preliminary results from the lab today — they still have a few more tests to run, but the vet diagnosed egg yolk peritonitis, with signs of infection in her lungs and air sacs, as the cause of death. from what i've read its pretty common in heavy breeds, and there's not much we could have done once she was at the point of nodding off; the infection must have been fairly advanced by the time we noticed anything off =(

luckily there isn't a concern about contagion, so at least that's good news for the remaining flock.

 

[azygous]

It's hard to lose a favorite chicken, but it helps to know why. Thanks for this update.