Internal laying vs. egg yolk peritonitis..warning, ******GRAPHIC PICS*****

[LovinThisFarmGirlLife]

earlier today I was our checking on my hens as they were beginning to roost for the night. I noticed one of my girls had a very swollen, red back side

I have 17 adult chickens and every day I check on them while I feed them meal worms. Today she was right there with the other 16 acting completely fine, eating and running around. I did notice though that she spent an awful long time in the laying box, and has for a couple of days now. I assumed she was going broody, as I’ve neber experienced that and figured that must be what was going on.

Anyway, when I brought her in tonight I assessed her, discovered that her abdomen was like a big hot water balloon and there was no egg. Sooooo I began researching. From what I read, I decided she was suffering from something that she wasn’t going to come back from so I decided to cull her. I then performed a necropsy to find out what was ailing her. Here’s what I found:

She had one whole egg, shell and all, but the shell was super soft and the egg was hard inside. She had another egg that had a soft shell but was still hardish, with what looked like scrambled eggs inside. She had three whole eggs with shells and all but the shells were paper-thin and broke as soon as I removed them. Then she had a ton of egg whites and 5 large yolks. She also had tons of pea sized and smaller yolks all clumped together with the larger yolks. Her insides were stained yellow, and the only fluid I was able to drain was yellow and I didn’t get much at all. But when I cut her open, what looked like egg whites is what came out. Her liver was also very yellow.

So I did some more research, and I’ve come to the conclusion that she must either have been internally laying, or she had egg yolk peritonitis. Or are they the same thing? They sound very similar, with only slight differences depending on what you read. What causes this? What would cause her liver to be yellow? My guess was that her liver was part of the problem, but again, that’s only a guess.

I inherited her from the man I bought my house from so I know little about her other than she was 5ish years old, and I believe she was a black Orpington.

I feel like I made the right decision, seeing as how bad she was suffering, but I want to know what this was and if there was anything I could have done to help her. Thoughts?

 

[SIMZ]

This won't answer many of your questions except to say that I agree with you that you made the right decision! I've left internal layers hang around and they end up completely wasting away and their abdomen ends up full of yuck. It looks so miserable!

I've never actually found eggs with shells, though. The smaller yolks and clumps are completely normal. It's the fluid and formed eggs with shells that sound unusual. Usually mine have lots of fluid in their abdominal cavity when I open them up.

 

[Eggcessive]

Thank you for posting your home necropsy pictures and discription. I am not a vet, but just interested in the reproductive disorders. To me, your chicken probably had an impacted oviduct, which led to egg yolk peritonitis and liver failure causing amber ascites fluid and the discolored liver. Sometimes the liver can look tan or putty colored, and there can be an excess of fat inside the body from fatty liver hemorrhagic disease. These threads like yours really helps us to learn more about what can go wrong.

Here is a good article that explains the different reproductive disorders:
http://www.regenbiocorps.com/index.php/poultry-diseases/17-disorders-of-reproductive-systems

 

[LovinThisFarmGirlLife]

This won't answer many of your questions except to say that I agree with you that you made the right decision! I've left internal layers hang around and they end up completely wasting away and their abdomen ends up full of yuck. It looks so miserable!

I've never actually found eggs with shells, though. The smaller yolks and clumps are completely normal. It's the fluid and formed eggs with shells that sound unusual. Usually mine have lots of fluid in their abdominal cavity when I open them up.

Thank you for your input. It helps to know that someone else agrees that I did the right thing. I struggle with those decisions because I don’t want to act prematurely, but I want the hen’s quality of life not to suffer.

So do you think this was something different than internal laying? It was definitely strange to find multiple eggs in her abdomen. Poor thing must have been sick for s while, but I never noticed anything odd until last night. When you say the smaller yolks and clumps are completely normal, do you mean normal for any hen, or normal for an internal layer? It makes sense that since they lay an egg every day or so that they would have multiple eggs and various stages of production, but I never expected to find that many large yolks!! And the eggs with shells has me completely stumped. I just want to know what happened! The article that @Eggcessive posted was very helpful. But none of those conditions quite matched what I found.

Thank you for posting your home necropsy pictures and discription. I am not a vet, but just interested in the reproductive disorders. To me, your chicken probably had an impacted oviduct, which led to egg yolk peritonitis and liver failure causing amber ascites fluid and the discolored liver. Sometimes the liver can look tan or putty colored, and there can be an excess of fat inside the body from fatty liver hemorrhagic disease. These threads like yours really helps us to learn more about what can go wrong.

Here is a good article that explains the different reproductive disorders:
http://www.regenbiocorps.com/index.php/poultry-diseases/17-disorders-of-reproductive-systems

Thank you, I was hoping I would be able to help someone. I agree that the closest thing to what I found was an impacted ovaduct. Now I’m concerned that maybe I could have done something to
Help prevent this

 

[SIMZ]

The clumps of eggs and small yolks are normal for any hen that is currently laying. Tiny clumps of eggs are normal for any hen - laying or not. What is not normal is the yellow liquid and definitely eggs with shells. With our internal layers - or whatever similar issue they're having like that - they will simply waste away while their abdomen fills with yucky fluid and large yolks.

You MIGHT have been able to do something, but would it solve the problem or just keep the hen going for a bit longer? Reproductive issues in hens are usually pretty serious matters. It sounds like she had a nice, long life for a chicken and you kept her from lingering on and possibly suffering.