Necropsy help *warning graphic photos*

[bobbi-j]

Good job and photos! I have no idea what was going on with your hen, but I'm glad you did the necropsy and shared the pictures. Very interesting.

 

[OakRidgeChickens]

This might help with regards to the ovary. The picture you posted looks normal to me. Same as all the other hens ive helped process. There are pictures of healthy and cancerous chicken ovarys here:
https://www.researchgate.net/figure...rmal-ovary-with-a-hierarchy-of_fig1_258697988

(Edit to fix spelling)

Interesting, you're right in that it does look like a normal ovary. But it does lack any type of development (larger orange ovaries), which would fit the description, since she hardly laid an egg in her life. Leaning more and more towards Mareks being the likely cause. Her windwipe and airway checked out as well, I didn't mention that before. her crop was completely empty of any food, but was full of water which she drank a lot of within an hour or two of dying. Also, this necropsy was done within a few hours of her passing.

 

[Kiki]

Take a look at the photo labeled 7 here.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...ns-questions-help.730199/page-2#post-10094221

Do your growths look similar?

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Here are a few more looks at them. Looking thoroughly, they were all over inside her.

View attachment 1481746

View attachment 1481747

View attachment 1481750

Did you happen to cut any of those open?
I'll take a guess and say those are ovaries that dropped into the abdomen and were coated with pus much like Lash Eggs would be.

 

[Rose Quartz]

Interesting, you're right in that it does look like a normal ovary. But it does lack any type of development (larger orange ovaries), which would fit the description, since she hardly laid an egg in her life. Leaning more and more towards Mareks being the likely cause. Her windwipe and airway checked out as well, I didn't mention that before. her crop was completely empty of any food, but was full of water which she drank a lot of within an hour or two of dying. Also, this necropsy was done within a few hours of her passing.

Im not sure i would say mareks yet. The whiteish things dont look like they are in the flesh, just loose through the abdomin. Could be a reproductive thing. Lash eggs is a possibility.

Of the other things you took pictures of the intestines were kind of hard to see, but the dark green areas of the intestine should be the caeca

The dark green looks normal to me. Unless it was elsewhere in the intestine. (This picture is layed out weird thats not how those are arranged inside, but it shows what im talking about)

There isnt much of the liver there. But of the little bit that is it looks healthy.

The main concerning thing is the white things, and the new feed. Good call on not feeding the rest to them.

 

[rebrascora]

Hi
I am so sorry for your losses.

Here is my take on it from what we can see and you have told us .....

1.

The ovary seemed to lack a liner, there were just small pinhead size "cysts" everywhere where the ovary should be (pictured).

The ovary looks normal for a bird that is not in lay.... ie no developing follicles. I understand what you are saying about there being no "lining" and it always strikes me as odd that the organ is not "contained" in some sort of sac, but that is the way it is.

2.

Found what appears to be a leather-ish egg casing (pictured below with the gizzard) inside her abdomen cavity, this was loose and sitting tucked in with her other organs.

Yes that looks like an internally laid egg but not necessarily the cause of death. I have opened up a chicken that was packed with many, many of those which were obviously deposited in her abdomen over weeks and months but it was the build up of fluid (ascites) probably as a result of them, which killed her. One or two would be unlikely to cause death.

3. Deposits or growths throughout - are those just fat deposits? The yellow pebble looking pieces. Those are as-is, I hadnt touched them.

Those may also be under ripe internally laid follicles (yolks) or more likely I think, a mature follicle which was laid internally and ruptured, leading to many smaller solidified egg masses, hence the odd shapes as the yolk dispersed in amongst her organs. The fact that there is no tissue or blood supply to them and they are free floating indicates that these are not tumours or even fat.

4. The swollen, black ....intestine? Does not look normal to me.

As someone else mentioned, these are the caeca and they appear to be very distended and to me that is not a healthy colour at all. I would guess there is an infection there and that may have resulted in death.

The pink lobes to the left of your orange circle are what is drawing my attention as being abnormal. You can see the same coloured tissue in the form of a tube coming out of your orange circle at the 7.30 point if it was a clock face and leading towards them. I believe that is the top of her oviduct, but it then seems to develop all those lobes or kinks. My guess is that they may be filled with lash egg material, since she did initially pass a lash egg. Once her oviduct got impacted like that, the final follicles that were released from the ovary would have nowhere else to go but to drop into her abdominal cavity.
The other option is that they are tumours as you can see a significant vascular supply, but the oviduct does naturally have a good blood supply to provide the large amount of nutrients required to produce eggs on a daily basis, so I'm going with salpingitis and some form of enteritis with that cecal distension and discolouration as the cause of death.

It is still possible that this bird had Marek's but I would not say there is anything specific in the photos we can see of this necropsy which would confirm that. Marek's suppresses the immune system and can leave birds vulnerable to secondary infections which they would normally be resistant to or be able to fight off. The lameness this bird exhibited might be down to Marek's or weakness or those lobes or eggy masses putting pressure on a nerve.

Regarding the other deaths, prolapse always leads me to think about obesity and possible associated Fatty Liver Haemorrhagic syndrome particularly if the bird died suddenly. That might tie in with your change of feed although it will not cause a sudden onset of the disease, but over a few weeks(months more likely) it might be possible, depending on what you were feeding before and the breed of the bird concerned. Did you feed scratch or corn or bread or other high carb treats before you switched to the "mash"? If so, the mash may have been the final straw to trigger Fatty Liver and the hen probably suffered a major liver haemorrhage as she was straining to pass the egg that caused the prolapse or the stress of you handling her to push the prolapse back in. Was she a big bird like an Orpington or Light Sussex and was she a good size? Many people do not realise that hens can suffer from obesity just like any other animal and those feathers can cover a multitude of sins, so it is not easy to see if they are too fat or too thin or have a nasty injury or swelling somewhere. I'm not saying this is the case with the second bird, but since you mention she prolapsed and she died shortly afterwards and you have concerns about the feed, those things would all die in. Thick fatty deposits around the vent cause the prolapse, fat in the liver caused the structure to become weak and the strain of the prolapse causes the liver to rupture and the fat is usually down to a high carb diet or a mash where the bird can selectively eat particular components of the feed and usually they go for the higher carbohydrate ones like corn. If the bird was a heavy breed or large bird that would be the 3rd strike. I would be interested to know what the liver was like on the bird in the necropsy as it appears to have been broken apart in the process, which suggests it may have been weak due to Fatty Liver. It should be firm enough to withstand
being handled without falling apart. Also, was there any notable fluid in the abdominal cavity of the bird you necropsied.

As regards the silkie (wilkie.... assuming typo??), it is difficult to say. It sounds like it could have been coccidiosis..... sick, lethargic and stopped eating. At that age, the bird should have developed immunity to coccidia but as I mentioned Marek's suppresses the immune system and leaves them vulnerable to such secondary infections. Silkies are particularly prone to Marek's. It would depend if the bird had recently been purchased and moved to a new home where it was exposed to new strains of coccidia that it had not previously had contact with and therefore no resistance to or if it had been reared in that environment and then suddenly developed coccidiosis, which would make me suspect Marek's.

The above are all purely may take on things based on the very small amount of info that can be provided by a few words and pictures on a thread. Of course we will never really know for sure for any of these birds, but interesting to share ideas and speculate. I would recommend that you get a professional necropsy if suffer any more losses and have testing done for Marek's.