Necropsy Photos What was going on here? ( Graphic )

[SilverPhoenix]

Yeah, the keel looks like there is something very wrong with it--I can't say what that was exactly, I'm not sure, but it really should not look like that. Her weight looks good, not skinny as the previous commenter said. Ovaries look fine as well. I'm not sure what it is that killed her, though it could have been whatever caused the keel deformity perhaps?

Sorry I can't be more helpful! Did you check her heart? Heart issues sometimes suddenly kill chickens, that's for sure.

 

[ladrholman]

Sorry for your loss. I did a necropsy on my jersey giant hen that died suddenly yesterday. Found that it was heart related ( atrium completely clotted) but we also noted that her sternum and keel were crocked. She seemed great until I found her dead, but it was interesting to see such a crocked breast bone and keel. Internally it seemed to run alright but on the top it was definitely not right.

 

[justbugged]

She wasn't dead when we found her, but she wasn't doing well. We could see that she was suffering from something, and made the call to put her out of her misery in the late afternoon. She never looked sick before we found her laid over in the coop that morning. We took her out of the coop, and set her up on a tall picnic table. She never moved except to roll over on her side. I tried a number of times to set her upright, and she would just kind of roll over to what ever side was the easiest. We had great weather that day and were working around the house, so we were keeping an eye on her, and it was clear she wasn't going to last for very long. I must say I was very surprised to see the breast bone like that. I am fairly sure that I had picked her up a number of times and it surprises me that I hadn't felt the deformity before doing the necropsy.