Necropsy Graphic Pictures

[jlwquilter]

The hen I posted about yesterday (possible leg mites) died during last night. She had lost a lot of weight within 7 days - she was fine on 6/28 and skinny on 7/5. She acted fine until morning of 7/5 when she didn’t come out with the rest for the morning feed. I didn’t see anything wrong with her other than the weight loss and then as the day went on she kept choosing to be in what would be cooler places (in front of fan, next to water pans). We fed her scrambled eggs, water (she drank earlier form the waterer) and gave her poultry cell. She went to roost on her own and hopped to the top shelf. Her death in the middle of the night was a shock.

After discussion my DH and I decided to do a necropsy. Our first although DH has experience with fish and squirrel. We watch a few YouTube videos first. They were very helpful.

Below are pictures I took. My internet stinks at night so I’m going to post the pics in batches. I’d appreciate any analysis to identify what happened to Petunia.

 

[jlwquilter]

This shows bumblefoot right? Only has it on one foot. I didn’t know she had it. I realized I’ve not been checking the bottom of their feet. Does it look severe?

 

[jlwquilter]

This is the first cut, starting to open her up. Lots of yellow fat. There didn’t seem to be much fat elsewhere though.

 

[jlwquilter]

No meat on the breast at all.
The bottom fat is the same fat seen in the first pic.

 

[jlwquilter]

Lungs. We thought they looked ok but we don’t really know. The video we watched said the lung on that hen were pink. These are definitely red, a dark red.

 

[jlwquilter]

Heart. The large blood clot was located immediately to the right of the heart.

 

[Mimi13]

The dark red organ in the pic is her liver. You will only see the lungs after all other innards are removed. Keep going.

 

[jlwquilter]

Opening up the body cavity.

 

[Mimi13]

The clot is nothing to worry about. Most likely just blood that has accumulated and clotted after her death.

 

[jlwquilter]

I’m not sure what the first picture is of - the shell making organ was our guess...?

She had lots of eggs in various stages of maturity. This looked normal to us. I do not know how old Petunia was but I think under 2 years old.