Possible Chokecherry danger

[ewerbos]

Our rooster dropped dead rather randomly last night. We took him in for a necropsy, and got the report back. Apparently she couldn't tell why he died exactly--except that his belly was full of (~20) pits that looked like cherry pits, which are cyanogenic/poison. We went in our yard and looked around, and we're pretty sure it was a chokecherry tree (the pits of the tree look like the picture she sent). I've seen some posts here saying chokecherries are fine, but it seems like eating a pile of them likely killed him. It's possible he was just an extra stupid rooster..

(The necropsy also showed that his heart stopped and that he had an enlarged spleen [which could indicate an infection or nothing at all], but he had no other signs of infection or trauma and seemed healthy)

These are the pits she found in his belly:

And here is a branch from the tree we are pretty sure is chokecherry:

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Lots of chickens will just drop dead one night. I generally suspect heart attacks.

It is impossible to say if the cherries played a part. Generally animals are smart enough to not eat things that are poisonous. I don't think you will know for sure unless it happens to more birds in a small amount of time.

A rooster will generally call hens over to eat what he's found, so I would think some of your hens ate them too, so if no other birds died than I wouldn't suspect the cherries.

 

[lazy gardener]

I think the necropsy report was way off base. The pits were intact. So, the poisonous material in the pits did not enter his system. While it's stated that the leaves, particularly if wilted, and the pits (again, I assume it's the meat inside the seeds) are poisonous, choke cherries are eaten by a lot of wild life, and made up a good part of the Native American winter diet. A quick review of choke cherries produced this article:

http://scienceviews.com/plants/chokecherry.html

As kids we would eat choke cherries... not many b/c they were so astringent. We would also spend hours gathering the ripe ones, and doing our best to extract the juice from them, then mixing in a ton of sugar to make the "juice" palatable. I'm still alive and kicking.

His heart stopped. Um... wouldn't that cause death? Enlarged spleen: ? white blood count elevated? Again, that could have been a causative factor.

 

[ewerbos]

The exact text of the Patholologist's comments were:

"The organs are congested (the heart stopped), and the spleen is enlarged (possibly due to infection). I am not sure of the source of the hard yellow pits/stones found in the stomach. If they are from something like cherries, the pits contain material that, exposed to stomach acid, creates cyanide. If the rooster was free ranging on your property and picked up food items that were potentially toxic, that could explain his sudden death. There is no evidence of trauma anywhere in the body, and no obvious infection anywhere (although the spleen is larger than normal)."

The rooster was certainly free ranging, and the pits do seem to be from something like cherries (chokecherries); it seems like the Pathologist believes that the pits could have caused his death in their current condition. My husband did some research indicating that the pits are indeed toxic, and that it can be tricky to make sure they are harmless if you are making a dish which contains them. Apparently horses die from them a lot.

The article cited above includes:
"Although the seeds are reported to contain significant amounts of prussic acid (a cyanide compound) the kernels were mixed in with the dried fruit and eaten in substantial quantity on a regular basis. It has been presumed that the drying process breaks down or otherwise gets rid of the prussic acid, rendering the pounded chokecherries harmless."

So raw pits could indeed be a danger... probably amount is also significant. Mr. Rooster was small (2.5kg), and there were a lot of pits. Probably the same number of pits in a human, or a smaller number of pits in a chicken, might not have killed him. Thus the conclusion: Dumb rooster!

(But of course, it is still a maybe--We're pretty well convinced, but of course the evidence is not 100% conclusive)

 

[lazy gardener]

Thanks. I still would like to know if the intact pits can be a source of the prussic acid, or is it the contents of the pits that are problematic? Bee kissed often finds intact cherry pits in the gizzards of her cockerels when she processes them, and her birds are busy roostering up until the moment of death. Don't know what kind of cherries her birds forage on.