Necropsy PHOTOS (graphic): Can you help explain?

[seamouse]

These are photos from my first necropsy. I definitely overlooked observations I should have made. My original belief was that the hen was suffering from Lymphoid Leukosis (or some cancer) or Egg Yolk Peritonitis. I sure didn't see that clearly. This was an almost 4 year old dorking hen with no respiratory or external lesion symptoms. No paralysis, though her energy steadily declined. She was clearly wasting, her food and water intake was declining, although it fluctuated daily. Her comb was darkening. She had fairly bright green diarrhea with varying amounts of clear fluid and yellowish urates. She had no other symptoms and was actually in fairly "good spirits" except that it was clear she was dying. She had crop issues and it clearly didn't seem her digestive system was working well. Neither fungal or anti-biotic treatments seemed to have appreciably impact. Her illness progressed slowly over the course of 5 or 6 weeks. Can anyone help explain these photos?

Photo below is first layer of skin removed with ascites swelling.



I drained roughly a quart of fluid


This is the view upon opening the cavity. What is going on where the left lobe of the liver should be? I really don't think I "lost" it in my opening of the cavity. The right lobe was thin, but a consistent rich mahogany color. In the photo below, the heart is still intact and not in view.



Here's a closer view of what "should have been" the left liver lobe...



I am also confused by the "bulbous thing" at the base of the intestines in this photo. The intestines also looked very "balloony" to me. Hen's food intake had been low for several weeks.


Close up of bulbous thing followed by photo of contents when it was opened... basically, it just sort of popped and clear fluid mixed with yellow debris poured out.





The heart didn't look particularly abnormal to me. Some of the "white sheen" on the outside must be from the camera's flash. It was largely a consistent color. The lungs were a perfect looking eraser pink, but the hen had showed no signs of respiratory problems at all, so that wasn't too surprising.






I believe this is a view of a ceca (dark part, pointing straight out). I believe that was verified for me by odor upon opening it. My question is, is it odd for it to be kind of tangled up in the intestines like this?


Second to last photo... I was confused by this "mass." Located at the base of the intestines, it looked like intestine but was solid where it looked like it should have been "tubular," if that makes any sense. By this point, I was feeling I needed to finish up the necropsy and probably didn't look as well at this as I should have.



Finally, throughout the cavity there were a few small, round bumps like these on the interior of some skin. There weren't a ton of them, maybe a couple dozen I saw. What are they? Fat? Air sacks? What are air sacks?


Unfortunately, I forgot to photograph the ovary which looked like most pictures of ovaries I've seen except that there were two "egg spots" that were dark green or black. It also did not appear to be any "egg activity" in this hen. I also looked at the bursa, which didn't look particularly odd to me. The gallbladder was certainly the right color. As I said at the start, this is the first time I've done this. I'm appreciative of the poster who recently shared her necropsy photos (sorry, blue something?) because I'd been looking at what I could find of photos and videos for about a week trying to desensitize myself enough to do this. I think that really, really helped. I don't think I could have done a necropsy without that preparation. I'm also extremely impressed with the Cornell Avian partners website. Sorry I don't have the url at hand. Any help identifying what's going on in these photos would be very welcome. -Rochelle in WA State