29 March, 2009
When the Other Half fed the chickens this morning, she noticed one of the hens was waddling and looking off-colour.
She told me, so after finishing my jobs, I went to have a look.
The hen, one of our older ISA Browns, was definitely walking strangely but she suddenly perked up when I came into sight.
She bolted for the trees, evading me with ease as she darted under the sharp branches and around the closely spaced trunks of the sitka spruce.
It’s almost impossible to catch any of the chickens when they’re right in the middle of the trees, so I decided to wait a while and catch her when she was unawares.
My opportunity came a little later when the hen decided to go into the hen house for a snack.
While her head was under the the lid of the feeder, I grabbed her, tucked her wings in tight and carried her into byre for examination.
The hen’s abdomen was grossly distended, while her vent was purple and inflamed.
When I palpated the abdomen I could not feel an egg in the cloaca so the hen was not conventionally egg-bound, which was unfortunate as I’ve saved a few older hens by carefully breaking and extracting over-large eggs.
Further examination indicated the blockage was on the left, roughly where the oviduct opens into the cloeca.
The hen was still passing faeces, albeit with difficulty, so the indications were that she had an obstructed oviduct and eggs were backing up behind the obstruction. (If her intestine had been blocked or if the cloaca itself was blocked, then little or nothing would have come out of her vent.)
The only option was to dispatch the hen as quickly as possible, which I did.
I then did a necropsy to check my diagnosis.
When I opened the hen up, I found she had a 90 degree, counter-clockwise twist in her oviduct where the isthmus joins the uterus. (In other words, just before the shell is added.)
As a result of the torsion, the isthmus and magnum were massively swollen with yolk and albumin while the blood supply to the uterus was severely restricted.
The hen would have survived for another 12-48 hours but would have been in considerable pain before eventually dying.
With the diagnosis confirmed, I mentally tucked away another piece of information for the future.
As for the carcass, it has to be sent to a Category 1 Approved Animal By-Products Incinerator for disposal at a cost of £11!
As with dead piglets, chickens get bagged and frozen until there’s enough to justify calling the knacker out.
I should have said that, when time permits, I’ll draw a sketch of the relevant area of the hen’s anatomy.
And them there 11 poundsies dont half add up eh? But why couldn’t you eat it?
Fallen stock are “not fit for human consumption”. We’re a registered holding, have a flock of more than 50 hens that’s registered with Animal Health, and have to be able to show where all our livestock end up.
Inspectors go through the paperwork and check that everything matches. If there’s a discrepancy, we’re in trouble.
Of course, I could have avoided mentioning the hen’s problems on the blog, in which case I could have put her down as being culled for the dinner table but then you’d not have much to read about. Of course, that would be wrong and illegal so I wouldn’t advocate anyone doing such a thing.
Ah but that hen did not “fall” it was pushed!
Surely once you’ve identified the problem you should be able to eat the beastie yourself?.
Of course I can see the counter arguments, and I suppose a one fit policy avoids confusion, and avoids misdiagnosis and potential problems, still must be annoying.
Yes, we could eat the chicken. However, I’ve written it up on the blog as a sick animal that had to be put down, which makes it “fallen stock”. Fallen stock have to go an to approved facility for disposal.
If I did not blog about what we do and if we had fewer chickens, then we could get away with eating as no one would know and no one would be able to spot a discrepancy in the records as there wouldn’t be any.
So, we have to do the right thing even if it’s the wrong thing, or perhaps do the wrong thing because it’s the right thing. If you see what I mean!
Hoisted with your own petard!
I agree with Lesley, but can see where you are coming from. Still given some of what you have ended up paying lately l suppose £11 is better than some of the costs.
Thanks for listing the symptoms of the problem, it all helps in identifying potential problems. We have a large egg layer (ex batt)that concerns me, I do feel she may have problems sooner or later, particularly as she gets older.
tbh I don’t like to eat a sick animal, even if you know what the problem is – there could be more to it.
There’s a difference between sick and injured, and there’s a difference between freshly injured and days old injured. The law can’t distinguish between those, so it takes a blanket approach. I wouldn’t eat a sick animal, well, not unless I was starving, but if I’ve seen an animal suffer an injury or I know it’s very recent (so no chance of infection) then I wouldn’t have a problem killing and eating it. I’d remove the injured parts to be on the safe side, but otherwise wouldn’t have a problem.
However, we’re not in a position to do that, so we don’t.
What happens if a chicken simply disappears? Carried off by a fox or something? How do you prove what happened to it, and are you guilty until proven innocent?
I find that level of governmental intrusion into someone’s life and private affairs totally unacceptable. But I see the US headed that direction with NAIS, where every animal movement to and from your property, and every death, having to be reported within 24 hours to the feds.
I ask the fox to fill in the log book and sign it!
More seriously, one of the worst things that can happen is someone dumping livestock on the croft. It happened a couple of years ago and caused no end of bother.