Tragedy today

[SurferchickinSB]

I ask because diet can play a huge role in this.
https://www.merckvetmanual.com/poul...e/fatty-liver-hemorrhagic-syndrome-in-poultry


I'd recommend zero treat and only feed a complete balanced poultry feed from now on.

They get meal worms and they are loose for three hours a day, so they eat all kinds of stuff besides their feed, mainly greens and bugs. None of my chickens are fat or overweight and even though her liver hemorrhaged she did not have a fatty liver

 

[micstrachan]

They get meal worms and they are loose for three hours a day, so they eat all kinds of stuff besides their feed, mainly greens and bugs. None of my chickens are fat or overweight and even though her liver hemorrhaged she did not have a fatty liver

Hello. I am so sorry for your loss. Last week I lost a hen to the same thing per UC Davis necropsy. Mine was not visibly overweight, weighed around 5 pounds as an australorp, which I think is on the small side, and seemed in perfect health. She DID have excess fat in her abdomen, despite the fact that they have always had the highest quality crumble I can buy and *I thought* were getting minimal treats (once every couple of weeks to call them in from free ranging and only enough that they could consume it all in about 5 minutes), but both necropsies I’ve had done revealed fat in the abdomen, so clearly the “little bit” of treats I was giving was still too much. I’m so sorry. It’s really shocking and devastating, I know. It’s good that they said your girl wasn’t fat. Just an FYI “very good condition” actually means they have fat in the abdomen per the UC Davis vet I was in contact with.

 

[SurferchickinSB]

Hello. I am so sorry for your loss. Last week I lost a hen to the same thing per UC Davis necropsy. Mine was not visibly overweight, weighed around 5 pounds as an australorp, which I think is on the small side, and seemed in perfect health. She DID have excess fat in her abdomen, despite the fact that they have always had the highest quality crumble I can buy and *I thought* were getting minimal treats (once every couple of weeks to call them in from free ranging and only enough that they could consume it all in about 5 minutes), but both necropsies I’ve had done revealed fat in the abdomen, so clearly the “little bit” of treats I was giving was still too much. I’m so sorry. It’s really shocking and devastating, I know. It’s good that they said your girl wasn’t fat. Just an FYI “very good condition” actually means they have fat in the abdomen per the UC Davis vet I was in contact with.

The report said she did have fat on the body, which sounded like she was healthy but she didn’t have a fatty liver. She weighed 6 pounds, which is on the low end for a Barnevelder and she got plenty of exercise every day. Her liver just hemorrhaged and I guess that is why she died in such a short period of time. She died in a three hour time when I was away from the house. I actually picked her up and told her to be quiet before I left because she was squawking a lot. She wasn’t acting sick. She was breathing through her mouth, but I thought it was because it was a hot day and because she seemed excited since she was squawking.

 

[micstrachan]

The report said she did have fat on the body, which sounded like she was healthy but she didn’t have a fatty liver. She weighed 6 pounds, which is on the low end for a Barnevelder and she got plenty of exercise every day. Her liver just hemorrhaged and I guess that is why she died in such a short period of time. She died in a three hour time when I was away from the house. I actually picked her up and told her to be quiet before I left because she was squawking a lot. She wasn’t acting sick. She was breathing through her mouth, but I thought it was because it was a hot day and because she seemed excited since she was squawking.

I’m so sorry for your loss. These feathered friends really capture our hearts and we do our best with their precious lives. Perhaps in your case it could have been genetic. I would still go to zero treats as suggested by @Texas Kiki. It sounds like they have a good life. Coco was absolutely stunning.

 

[SurferchickinSB]

I’m so sorry for your loss. These feathered friends really capture our hearts and we do our best with their precious lives. Perhaps in your case it could have been genetic. I would still go to zero treats as suggested by @Texas Kiki. It sounds like they have a good life. Coco was absolutely stunning.

Thanks, sounds like you’ve suffered some losses too. Yeah, Coco was real pretty, like a peacock and she made a really special sound, just like a hacksaw, I miss that sound. Thanks for your kind words. Well, I don’t think I’d be able to give my girls zero treats...

 

[ValerieJ]

I'm just so sorry for your loss! I feel you did right by her. Sometimes we just lose them, and even with the necropsy, we don't know why. I, personally, don't think it's the treats so much as it was her metabolism.

It is awful to lose a hen we love so much. You did everything for her and on some level she knew that. Even picking her up and telling her to be calm when she was squawking was a gesture of love. She just couldn't hang on. They hide their pain as long as they can, and then they go. It's the way it is with chickens. Breaks our hearts.

 

[SurferchickinSB]

Thanks, sounds like you’ve suffered some losses too. Yeah, Coco was real pretty, like a peacock and she made a really special sound, just like a hacksaw, I miss that sound. Thanks for your kind words. Well, I don’t think I’d be able to give my girls zero treats...

I'm just so sorry for your loss! I feel you did right by her. Sometimes we just lose them, and even with the necropsy, we don't know why. I, personally, don't think it's the treats so much as it was her metabolism.

It is awful to lose a hen we love so much. You did everything for her and on some level she knew that. Even picking her up and telling her to be calm when she was squawking was a gesture of love. She just couldn't hang on. They hide their pain as long as they can, and then they go. It's the way it is with chickens. Breaks our hearts.

Thanks, I am hoping she wasn’t in pain, pretty sure that she wasn’t suffering until she hemorrhaged and that probably was pretty horrible, but sudden. She was eating and running around that whole morning and afternoon before I left for three hours.The one thing that was different was she had not laid an egg in four days and usually she laid an egg about six days out of seven.

 

[Pickled Plaid]

I'm so very sorry for your loss. I just lost my first this morning. It's so hard not to miss them...

She was a stunning girl. *hug*

This is purely uneducated musing, but I can't help but wonder how chickens process/metabolize soy derivatives? Soy is a phytoestrogen. With processed soy being a predominant ingredient in so many types and brands of feed...is it even remotely possible that it's creating an imbalanced hormone cascade (too much estrogen) and over time the liver gets stressed/clogged with the aftereffect of the body trying to rebalance, or...? I honestly don't know enough chicken A&P to feel completely confident in wondering this out loud, but reading both surferchickenSB's and micstachen's posts about how their chickens live and are fed doesn't scream "fatty liver" to me. Healthy animals need and have to have some fat stores. Chickens that are living what general consensus would agree is a healthy lifestyle shouldn't be mortally afflicted with liver disease.

I briefly tried to search for studies looking at hormonal effects on chickens fed a soy based diet, but I need to look more carefully after I've gotten some sleep. I did find a study (that I need to read without a sleepy fog), on fatty liver hemorrhagic syndrome in backyard chickens; all but one case they examined was a hen, and most deaths happened in spring and summer (which would correlate with times that hormone levels would naturally cycle higher). Its an interesting study, but aggravating in that they used "healthy commercial broilers" as the control group. This fatty liver hemorrhagic syndrome was coined in the 1950's, first found in commercial broilers who were "overconditioned".

Incidentally, I worked with an internist for over six years. His patients with hormonal imbalances almost always had metabolic and lipid problems too. Metabolic issues in females often lead to unintended weight gain and difficulty losing weight. Just as patients with liver disease are at tremendous risk of life threatening bleeds, as the body can not clot properly. Some things just happen when certain systems aren't functioning as they should.

Apologies for rambling. Just trying to brainstorm, because our girls live a very similar lifestyle.

 

[SurferchickinSB]

I'm so very sorry for your loss. I just lost my first this morning. It's so hard not to miss them...

She was a stunning girl. *hug*

This is purely uneducated musing, but I can't help but wonder how chickens process/metabolize soy derivatives? Soy is a phytoestrogen. With processed soy being a predominant ingredient in so many types and brands of feed...is it even remotely possible that it's creating an imbalanced hormone cascade (too much estrogen) and over time the liver gets stressed/clogged with the aftereffect of the body trying to rebalance, or...? I honestly don't know enough chicken A&P to feel completely confident in wondering this out loud, but reading both surferchickenSB's and micstachen's posts about how their chickens live and are fed doesn't scream "fatty liver" to me. Healthy animals need and have to have some fat stores. Chickens that are living what general consensus would agree is a healthy lifestyle shouldn't be mortally afflicted with liver disease.

I briefly tried to search for studies looking at hormonal effects on chickens fed a soy based diet, but I need to look more carefully after I've gotten some sleep. I did find a study (that I need to read without a sleepy fog), on fatty liver hemorrhagic syndrome in backyard chickens; all but one case they examined was a hen, and most deaths happened in spring and summer (which would correlate with times that hormone levels would naturally cycle higher). Its an interesting study, but aggravating in that they used "healthy commercial broilers" as the control group. This fatty liver hemorrhagic syndrome was coined in the 1950's, first found in commercial broilers who were "overconditioned".

Incidentally, I worked with an internist for over six years. His patients with hormonal imbalances almost always had metabolic and lipid problems too. Metabolic issues in females often lead to unintended weight gain and difficulty losing weight. Just as patients with liver disease are at tremendous risk of life threatening bleeds, as the body can not clot properly. Some things just happen when certain systems aren't functioning as they should.

Apologies for rambling. Just trying to brainstorm, because our girls live a very similar lifestyle.

Thank you so much for taking the time to contemplate I will take a picture of the paperwork which should be arriving in the next day or two. I have a hard time understanding everything because I am not in the medical field. It looks like according to what I am reading in the email that she had a fracture in her liver that caused her to hemorrhage. I don’t know what a fracture would be caused by. All her life she drank a lot of water and liked watery treats, she would go crazy about watermelon rinds or fresh corn, fruit from the trees and bushes, she would run around like she was half crazed! That was the only thing I noticed that was different about her than my other chickens. Well, something happened to her about six months ago or so she started to lay wrinkled eggs and then that cleared up, but her eggs did not look the same as they did before. Her eggs were always super shiny like polished fake eggs and after she laid the wrinkled eggs, they were dull and not beautiful and shiny like they were before. Well, I should be getting the paperwork in the next day or two, I called them and they had said they sent it but I never got it, so they are sending it again and I will take a picture of it and post it and maybe some of you people that have knowledge about different medical conditions can explain it.

 

[Pickled Plaid]

Okay, counted a couple sheep and revisited the article I linked above...

There might be something to my exhausted rambling last night, but I definitely need others with more poultry knowledge to help me make sense of some of the data and information in the cited articles (I also don't have PubMed access anymore, so I can't view more of the cited studies than abstracts).

Here's the part that caught my eye:

"FLHS is most commonly observed in laying hens but can be recapitulated in male or female chickens treated with exogenous estradiol.20,27 Most of the FLHS cases (97.3%) in our study were female, and the majority (69.7%) had active ovaries, suggesting that they were under the influence of high estradiol levels."

This study was reflective in nature, so estradiol levels weren't tested, which is a bummer.

"Additionally, environmental stressors such as high heat have been shown to increase the incidence of FLHS,7,11,22,26 which could also help to explain the high incidence during summer in Northern California."

Heat intolerance to varying severity is not uncommon when an individual has hormonal imbalances (any woman who has been pregnant, or undergone menopause can vouch for this), or metabolic abnormalities (diabetics, especially insulin dependent diabetics have difficulty regulating glucose levels in severe heat). I would thereby hypothesize that heat stress alone is less likely a critical factor - though it's worth mentioning that heat stress is very cumulative in nature (so one day with a heat index of 115 isn't as dangerous as 3 days in a row of a heat index of low 100's)

With elevated estrogen's role in FLHS having been proven (even in male and female chicks under 8 weeks old!), I can't get into the cited articles to see what their methods/means for elevating estrogen levels were, or if anyone has looked at estrogen levels of backyard chickens eating commercially available, soy-derived diets. A study of soy based diet on estrogen levels in commercial layers would be informational as well (haven't found one yet, though).

My concern though, is if it's not the soy derivatives in their feed...what else could drastically and critically raise estrogen levels in otherwise healthy birds in so many different areas of the country? Chickens aren't exactly what I'd consider a fragile species, and the birds that are perishing due to FLHS were not neglected, mistreated, or tended to much differently than my own girls. What could be causing the hormonal overload and imbalance in our sweet ladies?