Necropsy on a 20 month old hen ***Very Graphic Pictures****

[pwand]

This was a 20 months old Columbia Rock. She always laid soft or thin shelled eggs which continually were broken in the nest box. She had access to calcium, oyster shells, egg shells. I tried everything, nothing worked to correct this issue. I have another one with problems like this as well and her eggs also drops at night in the poop box without the shells or randomly during the day. I suspect they have egg drop syndrome. I got them home as chicks and they started sneezing. I feel this is contributing to the egg problems. I bought them at the feed store, I should have taken them back when they immediately started sneezing. I was told by one person at the store they were all vaccinated and then I asked another person and she said no. I feed them 18% feed. I have three production birds and was told they required this protein amount. This bird to me seems extremely fatty. This is my first necropsy so I am not sure if her fat levels are normal, I suspect not. I haven't been giving them any hen scratch for about a year, even then it was a small amount. I give only greens from the yard or vegetable peals and their regular feed. This bird grew faster than her two sisters. Her crop was always twice the size of the rest of my birds when I checked them at bed time. She was at least 1.5lbs heaver than her sisters. She was always an odd looking bird. She passed away in about 10 hrs after I found her not looking well, fluffed up on her perch. She refused food. The day before she was out and about eating and seemed fine. I feel that her being over weight may be part of why she died and maybe cancer. During the necropsy I found a growth like a balloon full of red liquid. It was about 2 inches round. There was also something small and hard too, not sure if that was normal. Where her eggs were forming may not be right. Her liver looked good. She did pass an odd egg that was in the pop box that morning. She was frozen and thawed before I did the necropsy. I am not sure if that would make her look different inside from being frozen. Any ideas would be great. Thanks.

 

[casportpony]

Sorry for your loss, but thanks for sharing. That is a lot of fat, but I don't know enough to be able to comment. Do you mind if I send the pictures to the pathologist that use? Don't know that he'll comment on them, but he might!

-Kathy

 

[pwand]

Yes, that would be fine. It does seem like a lot of fat.

 

[casportpony]

Yes, that would be fine. It does seem like a lot of fat.

How did the liver look? One thing that looked kind of was was the color of the intestines. Look at the intestines here:
http://borlaug.tamu.edu/files/2012/03/Poultry-necropsy-Manual.pdf
There they look quite healthy.

-Kathy

 

[pwand]

Her liver I thought was ok, however, looking at that website, maybe it wasn't. Not as pink. Here is a picture, there is dirt on part of it with feathers, didn't have anything on hand to clean it off. I see what you mean for the intestines. Hers seem very wide too. I had tube feed her 60 mls of water and she hardly passed anything. The fat was really bad around her intestines as well.

 

[Lardy]

I have eviscerated chooks in the past and that does look like a fair amount of fat around her organs, makes you wonder what she ate prior to coming to you, although chooks eat most things they can't digest animal fat ( neither can we for that matter) but on the diet you had her on you would expect her to return to good health, maybe she had disease of her ovaries maybe a cancerous tumour?
And she succumbed to it.


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[pwand]

i came across this information by accident when I was searching for something else, its called "Sudden Chicken Death Syndrom" before my chicken died, she was laying facing the front in the shower stall, when she died she flipped backwards and onto her side, liquid oozed out of her mouth. We heard a loud noise from the bathroom and found her dead. I feel it was a heart attack. She may of had sometthing else going on as well, hard to say. She wasn't well in the morning, her comb was blue . When she would lay eggs, her comb would go blue. She was a bigger hen compared to her sisters and her crop was always much fuller than her sisters. As we can see in the pictures she is very fatty.


http://www.motherearthnews.com/home...den-chicken-death-zbcz1404.aspx#axzz3LvnBOYWE