Necropsy pictures - Graphic! Do you see anything out of the ordinary?

[pips&peeps]

I did a necropsy on a very young bird that died suddenly with my vet once. The bird had fat looking stuff inside her body cavity too. The vet told me it wasn't fat and that it was from infection. It ended up that she had punctured her intestines with a small sliver of shavings she ingested.

Maybe she had a infectious process moving through her and the worming put her over the edge.

 

[ArizonaDesertChicks]

The fat (yellow stuff) was solidified. The photo looks a little off color - the fat was definitely yellow, but not as bright as in the photos. I was surprised to see that much, since the only other chicken I'd cut open before was only 4-5 months old. She was barely over 2 years, so maybe the amount is normal for an adult hen? The huge pile in the photo was taken from her lower end - she also had a lot around the crop and gizzard.

This hen did have a problem a few months ago (had been healthy up till then). I had found her stumbling and not able to walk well. I picked her up and was shocked at how thin she was - her keel bone was very prominent and she was light. I brought her inside and gave her vitamins, yogurt, scrambled eggs, and her feed. She ate on her own - the following day, besides losing even more mobility in her leg and even wing, I noticed her crop was squishy, so we gave her drops of olive oil down her throat and I massaged her crop. After 2 days, that seemed to take care of the crop issue and I then brought in a bowl of sand/pebbles for grit, thinking my special diet without grit had given her sour crop.

After about 8 or 9 days of care, she was back to acting normal and no longer had trouble walking. We had recently changed to a treadle feeder and all the chickens seemed to get it, but maybe she didn't? I figured her thin body was either due to lack of feed (that she didn't like the new feeder) or worms, so I wormed them with Safeguard (2-3 months ago). She has been acting normal and fine for the past 2-3 months.

A few days ago, I dewormed my 21 chickens with valbazen because i found a poop with Tapeworm larvae in it. I gave all 16 standard hens 1 ml/cc each (which I later discovered I had erred in the dosage and gave them too much - should have been 1/2 ml/cc). The bantams received 1/2 ml/cc. She was acting normal when I wormed them and very actively, but unsuccesfully, trying to get extra pieces of bread from me. The following day, after being dewormed, I found that she was lethargic and brought her inside. Within 4-5 hours, she had died. The rest of the flock is fine.

 

[Erica]

I'm no more knowledgeable than anyone else but might as well have a go. My first impression was that her internal organs weren't completely shipshape, but at the same time I couldn't see anything really obvious as a cause of death.

Her liver is slightly discolored (the pale area) and dark in patches (signs of possible rupture or mild organ bleeding), but that doesn't really say much about how she died. It may suggest her liver was struggling to deal with the wormer. There are no signs that her liver is enlarged (with can go with chronic toxicity or fatty liver syndrome).

The stuff in the cavity does look like fat to me, but I wouldn't completely rule out infection. There's a faint yellowish sticky gloss coating the intestines, although that may also be because they've been cut out (hence spilling some contents). But if there was an infection it's not a massive full scale one.

The spleen is usually a lot darker and more even coloured, but again I can't see this as a cause of death. She wasn't quite right, but you already know that with the wasting. But another point worth thinking about (in terms of her being affected by the wormer while other birds are fine) is that if she's seriously underweight then the dosage was even higher for her than for the other birds. It may well have been enough to tip her over the edge but leave others fine.

I would put it down to the wormer with an unknown chronic illness that weakened her... Which is pretty much what others have suggested.

Sorry for your loss,
Erica

 

[TechnoCat]

I know absoulutly NOTHING about chicken deseases, but all I wanted to say is there is a large amount of fat and cool pic of a chickens heart!

 

[ArizonaDesertChicks]

Quote:
Thanks for your input. I need to add, that she was very thin 2-3 months ago, but was not too thin this time. She wasn't fat, but I didn't feel her keel bone.

 

[ProudNewChickenMommy86]

I WOULD SAY SHE HAD CANCER. CAN CHICKENS GET CANCER? I'M SORRY THAT YOUR BABY DIED!

 

[Erica]

Quote:
Oops, sorry, I must have misread that.

 

[ArizonaDesertChicks]

Thanks, Everyone. Lots of good feedback, but sounds like it's still a mystery. Maybe too much fat, maybe not, since she was 2 years old. Maybe an infection? Maybe she was just not strong enough to take the wormer or had a sensitivity to it. I was expecting to find a bunch of worms in there - now I'm wondering if my flock even needed to be dewormed again.

 

[hokankai]

I'm definitely no chicken anatomy expert, but that liver looks pretty inflamed to me. We had a liver section in my clinical chemistry class not too long ago and that looks like the color I'd expect in a human with hepatitis.

 

[mommissan]

My two cents.... Just a guess....

The liver is instrumental in the processing of fat whether for energy or storage. IMO that's a lot of fat around the organs. I'm guessing she may have had a hormonal/metabolic defect? If due to a metabolic defect, all her calories were improperly being stored as fat, then the rest of her body would be starving to death, because the calories consumed aren't available for energy, hence she would be thin. Fat metabolism is a burden on the liver, which would cause it to appear inflamed.

Chickens are like people, imperfect. Look at all the uniquely strange defects we as humans have to deal with. Should a chicken be any different?

BTW: Great pictures! Very interesting!