Up until a few minutes ago, I had two peachicks - one pied, around 1 1/2 weeks old, and one white, only 3-4 days old. The pied just died. He was fine this morning, walking around and playing, but he's had bouts of lethargy over the last week but recovered each time. He was also dropped recently, quite hard, but besides a little wing drooping seemed unharmed. That was 2-3 days ago. Since around 5 hours ago, he ceased walking, and in the last 1/2 hour started to have what would best be described as seizures or spasms. He was in my Chukar brooder for the last 3-4 days since the newer peachick was hatched and needed my "ICU brooder", and besides a little picking on the bridge of the beak seemed to be doing quite well. During the last 5 hours I moved him first to a partitioned area of the ICU brooder then cleared out my hatching incubator and placed him in there.
I autopsied pretty much immediately after death. Most everything looked normal and intact, heart was actually still spasming. I was suspecting the peachick may not have been eating/drinking, but his intestines were full, and he had been pooping normally. The liver was bright orange/yellow, I'll post a picture as soon as I can. There were also various bits of a bright yellow cheesy material (no orange tint like the liver, but had the same feeling as liver tissue) throughout the lower abdomen, just kind of interspersed between the intestines.
Has anybody seen anything like this? I'm very upset about this. He was one of only 2 eggs hatched this year, the other 4 did not hatch and the hen ceased laying after the first 6. And I know that because I was the one who dropped him a couple days ago, my mother (who is very attached to the peafowl) is almost certainly going to blame me for his death.
I autopsied pretty much immediately after death. Most everything looked normal and intact, heart was actually still spasming. I was suspecting the peachick may not have been eating/drinking, but his intestines were full, and he had been pooping normally. The liver was bright orange/yellow, I'll post a picture as soon as I can. There were also various bits of a bright yellow cheesy material (no orange tint like the liver, but had the same feeling as liver tissue) throughout the lower abdomen, just kind of interspersed between the intestines.
Has anybody seen anything like this? I'm very upset about this. He was one of only 2 eggs hatched this year, the other 4 did not hatch and the hen ceased laying after the first 6. And I know that because I was the one who dropped him a couple days ago, my mother (who is very attached to the peafowl) is almost certainly going to blame me for his death.
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