What is this?

[roseyred]

That looks spot on casportpony

 

[casportpony]

Hi All,

I am going to try to upload these pictures, because I have never seen anything like this. I have not been able to understand why we couldn't do anything to help a hen that is laying internally. Now I understand.

This is my Hope. She lived for a week after we discovered she was in trouble. But, obviously, she had been laying internally for quite awhile before that.

We did everything in our power to help her - two antibiotics, warm baths (she seemed to thoroughly enjoy them), keeping her on a heating pad with a heat lamp overhead (red bulb) (we're in the mountains of NC where it is still chilly at night and in the mornings and evenings), keeping her in the dark, giving her Poly-Vi-Sol, oiling her with olive oil in the mouth and in the vent - everything we could think of, but it didn't help. She died in my arms yesterday afternoon.

These pictures are graphic, but I had to see what everyone means by laying internally.

All I can say is "Wow". Who'd a thunk it?? They must internally lay for awhile before you even realize something is wrong. Wow.

Rest in peace, my little one.

 

[casportpony]

This person figured out that they were cysts:

Can anyone tell me what this is? I'm guessing cancer, but the pictures I've come across in research don't quite look like THIS. Symptoms were: floppy comb, purple at the tips, poopy butt, lethargy, no interest in scratch, I didn't see her eat pellets, though she was interested in drinking water. Hadn't laid eggs in a very long time (she had distinctly colored eggs), but she was 3+ years old, so that was not a concern to me. Day two of extreme lethargy I cleaned her butt off to see if it was blocked by too much poop. It was not, and she even pooped while the warm water ran on her, but died seconds later in my arms.




It was all attached to her organs as well as the tissue walls, so I actually had to pull quite harder on the insides than one normally does when only processing a chicken to get it out. It was everywhere, including her lungs, which could explain the purple tipped comb. But what is it and what caused it?

 

[Akrnaf2]

Pretty sure it's called "cystadenocarcinomas" above pictures are from here :http://www.cvm.ncsu.edu/dphp/phm/documents/AVMA2005.pdf [ATTACHMENT=867]AVMA2005.pdf (491k. pdf file)[/ATTACHMENT] -Kathy

You absolutely right! it certainly looks like cysts , apparently in tred I mentioned also mistakenly believed that was internal laying.

 

[cyanne64]

I am not an expert by far but from what I have read external laying would mean inside these bubble type things would be a yellow yolk. None of them have yolks only a very thin water type substance with just a tinge of yellowish brown color.I cut her open between the legs towards the behind and a huge gush of that water type substance poured out of her.

 

[cyanne64]

It sure did look exactly like that but even larger bubbles/ cysts. By the way....you are awesome! Thanks you so much for helping me solve this mystery, now to figure out what caused this. Thinking back, I believe I may have had another hen pass from this as well about 6 months back! THANK YOU very much again....and again!

 

[cyanne64]

Some of the pictures of this other chicken appear to have yolks in some of the cysts, mine did not!

 

[cyanne64]

My hen had also laid an egg after I found her to be ill, which I can't understand how it could pass with all this on the outside applying pressure inside of her!

 

[JPoh]

So my question would be, do you still process and eat the bird?

 

[cyanne64]

My hens are only layers we don't ever use them for their meat. We do eat chicken, a lot of chicken, just not ours. Normally when our chicken's pass we just bury them but I realized the last time that I didn't know what the internal parts of a chicken looked like to truly understand how their system functions. When you buy them from the store most of that is gone and that which is there isn't where it naturally should be so I decided to open the last one and educate myself. You can imagine the surprise when I did that!