Updated! - Test Your Diagnostic Skills - Warning, Contains Graphic Necropsy Photos

[Chainsawgrandma]

Don't know if this would help, but my daughter (research scientist) sent me the link. http://www.merckmanuals.com/vet/poultry.html

 

[TheTropix]

Awesome, chainsawgrandma!! Thank you and please thank your daughter for us, too!

 

[duallydude]

This may seem weird but it happened to one of my hens..Her crop was full but she was falling over and finally died..My uncle who is a vet checked her out and what she died of was starvation..She has swallowed a balloon and tho she was eatting it had her crop mostly blocked so the food couldnt digest and she got dehydrated which caused the runny poop

 

[ParadiseFoundFarm]

Subscribing

 

[Funky Feathers]

New pictures?

 

[seminolewind]

OMG Kathy! post them pics!!!!!!

 

[casportpony]

Okay, you asked for them,

. These are from the second hen that I suspected had a soft egg that she could not pass back in May.

History - 5 year old Old English Game hen. Back in May she kept looking like she was trying to lay and was looking depressed, so I brought her inside, de-wormed and dusted her, then did a cloacal exam and that's when I felt the soft egg, but given her small size I was unable to get it out manually, so I just let her return to the flock after several days of trying the following:

• Warm baths
• Steam baths
• Calcium
• Lube
• Massage

So if any of you ever read that a bird has just 48 hours to pass an egg or they will die, this hen is proof that they can linger for months with a stuck egg.

The day she died her crop was full from the day before, but it was not impacted, nor was the gizzard, her organs had just shut down.



Note the dark coloration that was present *before* her death.


This picture shows her normal colored leg and her necrotic abdominal cavity.

Normal color breast meat, what there is and very prominent keel.


This is about where I found the egg, but it wasn't in the reproductive tract as I guess that had the entire tract had turned necrotic and disappeared some time ago.


The rotten soft-shelled egg from May.


Close up of the large intestine.


On the left is a mature yolk, middle are smaller ones gone hard and rotten, right is the egg from May.


Same bits as above.


Nasty, smelly, necrotic mess!


Contents of yolk and egg.





-Kathy

 

[mbbrinegar]

What is that lying next to the soft egg?

 

[casportpony]

Which picture?

 

[TwoCrows]

You are stronger than me. I love pus and gore, but smells!!! NO way!!!!!

OMG...I almost died laughing! LOL I am with you on this one...I can lop heads off, cut into dead critters, but when they start to stink, I am done with them!

Oh and great job Kathy....I have been on the edge of my seat for this entire thread!