Two more birds down

Basically every other Friday this month, I’ve lost one. No symptoms. The mid-October one had the following report:


“At necropsy the bird is in acceptable postmortem condition, thin body condition (BCS 2/5). There is a palpable fluid wave in the coelom. a moderate amount of ascites is present internally. The peritoneum is thickened and opaque. The left liver lobe has a slightly mottled appearance. The mesentery is thickened, tan, with multifocal to coalescing tan nodules of varying sizes. The intestinal walls are thickened. There are nodules around the pancreas. The ovary appears enlarged and neoplastic with tan nodules of varying sizes.
Ddx: Neoplasia (lymphoma vs adenocarcinoma vs other)”


Today’s I just buried. Same breed and age (2 1/2 years, Golden Comets).  I feed Faithway laying pellets.

Should I increase their forage? Switch feeds? I haven’t lost so many so steadily before. I’m not doing anything different from what I’ve always done, but I feel like it’s something I’m doing/not doing.

Sorry you are still having more deaths, is this due to the hepatitis?

I'm not exactly sure if my interpretation is correct but it may be more genetics than any other factors that might influence the birds health. The breed Golden Comets has some reports of being susceptible to neoplasia floating around the interwebs. Perhaps a different breed of chicken or at least different line of genetics might be something to consider?

Timothy Norton wrote:I'm not exactly sure if my interpretation is correct but it may be more genetics than any other factors that might influence the birds health. The breed Golden Comets has some reports of being susceptible to neoplasia floating around the interwebs. Perhaps a different breed of chicken or at least different line of genetics might be something to consider?

I agree that there may be something to be said for genetics. If it were multiple breeds experiencing this I would question that theory, but I know from experience that Golden Comets can be prone to health issues. I had some several years ago, and whoever wasn't culled had died by the age of four. It was almost like clockwork. A number of high laying hybrids (like the Comets) experience liver failure before or at 4 years old. So at least that problem is genetic.
In sheep, at least, we've experienced a definite connection to the genetics. We brought in several new sheep last year that came with pneumonia. We're so dry that we don't usually get pneumonia, but this spring at lambing time we had probably half the lambs get it, and quite a few die. The connection? Genetics. One ram had every one of his lambs get it, and while only one died, 2/3 of his remaining lambs took months to recover.  Another ram only has one surviving lamb. Interestingly enough, another ram only had 2 of his lambs get sick, and they recovered quickly. Genetics played a huge role in the outcome of the individual lamb's health.

The issue of genetics in specialty and heritage breeds is real and difficult to deal with. The smaller scale you're working with, the harder to fix, from my experience.

I'm living on an island, and have tried to keep a small flock of Khaki Campbell ducks going over the last couple of decades as some people who are allergic to chicken eggs, can eat duck eggs, and they're hard to get in the shops.

We had extremely poor hatchability and livability of Khaki ducklings when we first got started. I was told someone up Island had better success, but timing didn't work out to connect with them. Eventually, I managed to get some Khaki ducks that clearly had been interbred recently with Indian Runners (there's IR in Khaki's already, so this isn't a bad approach), and then someone raised some Golden 300 ducklings and we got some of them and eventually interbred a bit of them into our Khakis. Hatchability is still lower than for our chickens or Muscovy, but livability is way up. Unfortunately, Polish Crested is in the Khaki mix, and we've experienced throw backs of that which generally results in death.

Most importantly, laying numbers have been more or less maintained. Khakis are one of the best layers among ducks, and we're keeping ducks for eggs, so there's no point improving other problems if it gives the laying numbers a severe hit (little hit, I'm OK with!)

So if genetics is the problem, I'd be looking at where the birds came from, what characteristics in this breed you're in love with, what other sources of this breed are available to you, and what other breeds have similar desirable characteristics that could be supported by some careful interbreeding. This is not a "quick fix"! In your case, if the symptoms are only appearing at 2 to 4 years old, it will take a long breeding program and extremely good record keeping, to be sure you've improved the situation.