Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

We have had 3 hens die in the past 3-6 months. Unfortunately we did not think of doing our own necropsy to the previous hens. This time we did. When we tried to skin her, she gushed clear, yellow fluid. Upon further investigation we discovered what looked like scrambled eggs.
Is this Ascites and egg peritonitis?
Is it possible that this could be the cause of the other death too? Each one was lethargic, rapid weight loss and death.

Yes looks like she was internally laying and eventually impacted. Ascites (build up of fluid in the abdomen) then basically strangles the circulatory system from functioning properly. If they were related birds it is possible they all had the same...but ascites can be caused by many things-infection, heart disease and internal laying all can cause ascites for instance

Thank you WLLady. When the deaths started I was worried that it was Mark's disease.
Thanks again

I wonder if this could be salpingitis.

Definitely laying internally. Oviduct, what I can see of it, looks OK...liver looks OK, however egg follicles grossly abnormal. Cecal pouches look necrotic, most likely from inadequate blood supply, but if you still have her remains, I'd open those up and check for worms or caseous build-up. If you don't find any, most likely an ovary infection caused the deadly chain of events. There should not be an opaque membrane enclosing groups of immature yolks, so her body was trying to wall off infection, and since the follicles are walled off but no visible adhesions on the oviduct, intestines, or wall of abdominal cavity (looks kind of like skin or membrane attaching parts that aren't supposed to be attached, I'd say she did a fair job of it...unfortunately, it meant that eggs went where they weren't supposed to.
Look closely at the organs, intestines, and flesh for whitish 'dots', those would be a tell-tale Marek's sign. I don't see any, but my view is limited lol. Have a look at her kidneys too, they can also be a source of ovary infection, and vice-versa.

Sometimes an infection as a chick such as Infectious bronchitis, which may be so minor as to be unnoticed can cause reproductive problems such as internal laying later in life.

i don't see any of the tell tale white nodules you'd see in mareks. www i'm so glad you can put that into words! i know what i see, but no clue really how to describe it, for me it's a whole picture LOL. for your post!!!!

I did write a reply this morning but somehow it didn't get posted.
Let me see if I can remember what I said lol
We did look for parasites/worms in the intestines. My husband has processed our meat chickens and said immediately that this was not right. It looked like the intestines were sealed together (the necrotic part).
I'm so happy to hear that it is marek's!
Thank you all for the excellent responses. It's so good to know that you have a place to go to get answers.

WLLady wrote:QR_BBPOST i don't see any of the tell tale white nodules you'd see in mareks. www i'm so glad you can put that into words! i know what i see, but no clue really how to describe it, for me it's a whole picture LOL. for your post!!!!

LOL! Thank you! I don't see a whole picture, I see puzzle pieces, and it made me a little nuts that I couldn't get in there to see all the other pieces LOL. I find it hard to believe you have trouble describing stuff, you have to write reports and grant requests all the time...I couldn't do that. I have a heck of a time putting stuff into words in a way that makes sense to other people. Richard's always telling me to 'dumb it down' when I write, because other people don't think the same way I do :/

HnH Farm wrote:QR_BBPOST I did write a reply this morning but somehow it didn't get posted.
Let me see if I can remember what I said lol
We did look for parasites/worms in the intestines. My husband has processed our meat chickens and said immediately that this was not right. It looked like the intestines were sealed together (the necrotic part).
I'm so happy to hear that it is marek's!
Thank you all for the excellent responses. It's so good to know that you have a place to go to get answers.

Those are the two cecal pouches, they are blind-ended tubes that function much like a human's appendix. It's normal for a chicken to have them, but the swelling and purplish colouring is definitely not normal. Did all the (so far) affected hens come from the same hatchery or breeder?

i noticed she's a barred rock? my original barred rocks, from a hatchery, all went due to internal laying at about 2 years old. looked identical to yours inside...i finally stopped necropsy-ing them. lost them all eventually. interestingly, when i got a new barred rock male and hatched kids, none of the kids have any problem, and i still have 2 that are almost 7 years old and still give me an egg once in a while....but i've moved more into the "closer to show quality" barred rocks, and haven't had any like this....so i'm curious where they were from too.

grants are different WWW. it's "what i want to do"...no problems with that. but when i see a bird and someone asks a question-especially with the genetics or disease-it's like a whole picture....it's weird. not sure how to describe it. LOL. i'm weird.