My Ameracauna died today....

[Farm Frenzy]

I went out to feed this morning, and found one of my Ameracaunas (who just started laying by the way) dead in a nest box. There was an egg smooshed to her butt, so the first thing that comes to my mind is that she was egg bound, or something happened while she was laying. I'm sorry, but I am going to school to be a medical examiner, so I couldn't help myself. I performed a autopsy on my girl, and your never going to believe what I found.

I found that in her gizzard, along with a punture wound. She must have ate it, and while pushing to lay an egg, pushed the screw through her gizzard. I have no idea where it came from...I'm completely devastated.

 

[enola]

I have done many autopsies on my animals after they pass away. I don't always know what I am looking at or looking for, but I have found what I considered to be large hunks of glass in a chicken's gizzard.

One time when I helped my grandmother butcher an old hen, we found very small pieces of cobalt blue glass in her gizzard !

I consider it just more proof that a chicken will eat anything that does not jump up and run away from it !

 

[rooster-red]

Sorry for your loss.

My buff minorca passed a nail that same size all the way through until it hit the vent, turned sideways an pierced it.

I had to cut the nail in two to get it out, I didn't think she would recover, but she did.

 

[the_eagle69]

WOW sorry for your loss but glad you opeded her up. I now wonder how many times this has happend before and no one knows. I find chickens dead from time to time with no reason now i wonder.

 

[Farm Frenzy]

I just wanted to make sure that it wasn't something that could pass along to the others. I have now scoured my entire coop and didn't find any more screws, so she must have found the only one in a big HUGE coop. It sucks for sure, but it would have driven me crazy not knowing.