Overfeeding and Fatty Liver Hemorrhagic Syndrome

[HappyMo]

Yesterday one of my favorite chickens and best layers (10 month old Black Sexlink - Patsy Cline) died. She had been acting perfectly normal all day and at 5pm I found her sitting in the barn breathing heavily (mouth open). She died in my arms a half hour later.

She and the nine others free range mostly (on 2 acres) and I also leave food available in the coop. It would take about a month to go through 50 lbs of feed. I also gave them a couple handfuls of 5 way scratch in the a.m. and p.m most days.
Today's necropsy showed she died from internal bleeding due to Fatty Liver Hemorrhagic Syndrome. I am HORRIFIED that I overfed my chicken to death. I certainly hope it wasn't painful!!
She felt heavy to me, but not fat... Being a new chicken mom I just thought she was a heavy breed.
The vet at the Avian Health & Food Safety Lab (of WSU) said not to free feed. The good news: livers regenerate better than other organs so if I limit feed and increase exercise (maybe build a chicken treadmill

) the others may not develop fatty livers or if they already have them it can get better.
A hard and super sad lesson to learn!!!

R.I.P. Patsy!!

Molly

 

[Akane]

Like I said on the other thread I'm betting there's some other factor here. So many people free feed and so few have overweight chickens from it. Treats are the usual culprit for overweight birds. Lack of exercise would probably be second. If your situation doesn't match either of those I'd chalk it up to bad genetics. Something was probably wrong with the hen that led to overeating or gaining too much weight on a normal amount of feed. Again like I said this is especially likely if you only have one that's considerably heavier than the others.

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

there was a thread on this about a year ago after listening to all inputs my general take on it was the same as akane's. Some birds are predisposed to certain illnesses and degenerations. even some breeds. I highly doubt you were able to overfeed a free ranging chicken or that it was your doing in any way.