Hello,
I've been on this site for quite awhile just reading posts. Today I went out to check for eggs in the afternoon and found one of our pullets face down dead. There was no apparent external damage and no fluid sepage. We did a necropsy and found that she had a large mass of what looked sort of like stool. It was very solid and tan. But it was oval shaped like a very large egg. It wasn't in her intestine. But we couldn't find any of the usual reproductive organs. She is an Easter Egger that was advertised as a farm line Americana-spelled that way. We used a breeder that we personally met and purchased about 70 chickens and turkeys from them. we have slowly decreased our flock by culling roosters and some older hens. The Easter eggers most likely have some welsummer in them because I know the breeder has welsummers and we have a couple olive eggers. This is the only chicken we've lost. And for some reason the Easter eggers tend to pick on each other quite a bit. We have 8. A couple of them have some pretty bad feather loss by their tail. They have plenty of room and are let out to range quite often. And it's only that breed we have problems with. Back to my question. Is it possible that we got a chicken with a genetic anomaly like a tumor or something instead of reproductive organs? Could it be a puss egg? Has anyone experienced this before? I'm slightly concerned about defects from poor breeding. We had to get rid of ALL of one breed because they were terribly aggressive. Thanks!
I've been on this site for quite awhile just reading posts. Today I went out to check for eggs in the afternoon and found one of our pullets face down dead. There was no apparent external damage and no fluid sepage. We did a necropsy and found that she had a large mass of what looked sort of like stool. It was very solid and tan. But it was oval shaped like a very large egg. It wasn't in her intestine. But we couldn't find any of the usual reproductive organs. She is an Easter Egger that was advertised as a farm line Americana-spelled that way. We used a breeder that we personally met and purchased about 70 chickens and turkeys from them. we have slowly decreased our flock by culling roosters and some older hens. The Easter eggers most likely have some welsummer in them because I know the breeder has welsummers and we have a couple olive eggers. This is the only chicken we've lost. And for some reason the Easter eggers tend to pick on each other quite a bit. We have 8. A couple of them have some pretty bad feather loss by their tail. They have plenty of room and are let out to range quite often. And it's only that breed we have problems with. Back to my question. Is it possible that we got a chicken with a genetic anomaly like a tumor or something instead of reproductive organs? Could it be a puss egg? Has anyone experienced this before? I'm slightly concerned about defects from poor breeding. We had to get rid of ALL of one breed because they were terribly aggressive. Thanks!
