Strange mass inside a hen...???

[BobnMally]

Hi, Just joined BYC and have a question for anyone that might know.
We just had a hen (Rhode Island Red) die today,She was just a little over a year old.
My Wife wanted to see if she could figure out "What happened" so ,on to the kitchen table she went..
She found a very large mass that almost looked like an egg but with no shell inside her, And a new egg forming behind that.
The combination of the two ruptured something inside of her. We're not Chicken experts so lets call it the place the eggs are made. It actually looked like a hard boiled egg in there.
Inside the large mass was two fetuses (bones,Vertebrate, pasty mass of some sort) The strange thing is that she has not been around a rooster for at least four months.And has been laying eggs with some (What looks like) calcium build up on the shells. We bought five layers from a friend,I'm guessing they must have a rooster but could this have been inside her all this time? has anyone heard of this before? She never has seemed "right" since we got her but it's colder here and she came from a warmer climate so we figured even though there is a heater in their coop,she just needed time to acclimate and would get better in the warmer Spring weather.Thank you for any help and we're looking forward to hearing any coments or suggestions.
Thanks

Bob

 

[speckledhen]

There is no cure for internal laying, so, no, there was nothing you could do to prevent or cure it. I've had hens with larger masses inside the abdomen, but didn't look further for those pics. It's hormone/genetic based and just the curse of egg laying hens, for the most part, though I have had only one hen who was not direct hatchery stock have this issue so far.

There was one study that said that flax seed may be of some minor help in preventing some internal laying, however, my own hens did receive flax on occasion. Not sure when you'd have to start it, how much to give, if it would always help, to what extent, etc. It's a good nutrient rich thing for them to have in their feed, to be sure, but I would not count on it as a cure for this.


For the future, these threads may be helpful to you-they come out of some of my own experience:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=362422

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=195347

 

[EweSheep]

Speckled Hen had that problem in her chickens. BRB to find the link.

It is egg yolk peridontics (sp). Still trying to find the link.

 

[speckledhen]

I've moved your post here to Emergencies and Diseases so it will get more attention.


Sounds like she was an internal layer. Lost many hatchery hens to that.

Did it look like this or similar? That is a combination of solidified infection and egg material from the oviducts and abdomen of one hen.

GRAPHIC PICS WARNING, if you're squeamish, folks:

 

[BobnMally]

Yes, That's exactly what it looked like.But bigger,We talked to a vet friend of ours and she said it happens to all egg laying animals to some extent and more often in Turtles.
She said there was nothing we could have done for her .At least now we know.
Thank you for helping out.Still interested in learning more about this too.
great forum.

 

[BobnMally]

Thank you

 

[coloradochick]

BobnMally !!! So sorry about your loss. It's tough. But I'm curious about the "fetus'" you found in there. Could it be that the eggs were fertile and the warmth of her body started the incubation process......

 

[jgervais]

Just lost my hen to it this week.
http://simplelifeainteasy.blogspot.com/2012/03/egg-yolk-peritonitis-diagnosing-sick.html
It took me a while to figure out what she had going on - the symptoms were the same as so many other illnesses/diseases.

Is there a checklist or table somewhere to compare symptoms of the chicken and relating problems/diseases/illnesses?

 

[speckledhen]

Even if you did have a chart, the symptoms are so similar that you couldn't diagnose it 100% without looking inside.

I had a 6 yr old RIR hen die recently with symptoms of internal laying. Though she did have a couple of minor masses in the oviduct, she really died of ovarian carcinoma, with a large fibroid tumor in the oviduct and many tiny fatty tumor-like things on oviduct and intestines and much fluid in the abdomen. It looked the same from the outside, but inside was quite different.

Another hen had a huge egg-within-an-egg that had dropped into her abdomen, but from outside, it looked like symptoms of internal laying. It wasn't at all.

 

[jgervais]

Even if you did have a chart, the symptoms are so similar that you couldn't diagnose it 100% without looking inside.

I had a 6 yr old RIR hen die recently with symptoms of internal laying. Though she did have a couple of minor masses in the oviduct, she really died of ovarian carcinoma, with a large fibroid tumor in the oviduct and many tiny fatty tumor-like things on oviduct and intestines and much fluid in the abdomen. It looked the same from the outside, but inside was quite different.

Another hen had a huge egg-within-an-egg that had dropped into her abdomen, but from outside, it looked like symptoms of internal laying. It wasn't at all.

Thats a really good point, since we buried my hen I can only assume that my diagnosis was correct.
It seems like the best thing, and often the only thing you can do is make them comfortable and provide food and water.