[AndynJ]

Oh my £54 for an autopsy it's a lot but then we have lost 3 rare breed in the past 6 weeks, 2 this week, I am aware that's not out of the question but we have 5 rare breed that I don't believe we can replace and another 16 that are worth £200 ish we are trying to save the rest.
 

[Mammyshaz]

Its a lot from your pocket but not much for the post mortem persons expertise and time to check everything.
And if a diagnosis can save your remaining flock, money well spent.
Sometimes just knowing the cause of the deaths is worth the cost.

I had a coupleof pet rabbits post mortemed many years ago because within a few days I'd lost a chinchilla, all my  beloved rabbits and was so worried whatever the cause could affect my dogs and cats or even the family.  Such a relief to find pasturella was cause so dogs were safe but worried day and night until the report came back.

Hope it's nothing too serious or, at the least,mths rest of your flock can be treated. 
Keep us posted

[HesterF]

I went through it last winter - paid for a cockerel to be PMd that I'd got for free. Then paid even more for samples to be sent off. But like you, he was rare breed, I wanted to breed from them and therefore I needed to know what was going on - and whether I could have done anything to prevent it. Conclusion was I couldn't have prevented it but we (including the vet) learnt a lot, I had a closed flock for six months, knew what we were swabbing for at the end of that time and now they seem (fngers crossed) to be OK having lost six birds in short succession last winter.

Just hope that the PM is conclusive because it is even more to send off the samples. My vet was brilliant and ended up phoning up some top expert to get advice on the way forward. Pity he's just left to do a PhD in how giraffes, rhinos and elephants move - clearly the experience of my chickens was not enough to entice him to stay in small animal practice for life.

H

[AndynJ]

We have gone to a chicken specialist, they have commercial and backyard departments we obviously have a lot of chickens in our area. They have their own lab 
The downside to it being something simple /minor is that makes me thick as I've had chickens some 30 years now.

[AndynJ]

Well we actually took 2 chickens in the end as we still had one that had died earlier on
The results
The Maran that died yesterday had swallowed some tissue, blocked tubes, inflamed bowel, bowel infection, septsimia then died
No.2 died of a heart attack
Great so no conclusive evidence , though they did test the internals of both and said they were in extremely good condition, the vet even asked what we fed them.
 

[Mammyshaz]

I thought that was conclusive  One had a heart attack and the other died through a blockage after eating tissue?  Perhaps I'm reading it wrong.

[shygirl]

I thought that was conclusive  One had a heart attack and the other died through a blockage after eating tissue?  Perhaps I'm reading it wrong.

at least no disease. thats worth knowing.
we have an autopsy service here - the initial tests are subsidised by the gov but further tests are quite pricey.
we had a few show rabbits die in succession so we sent two to be tested, neither had a clear cause of death, even though we had further tests done - so we were none the wiser.

[HesterF]

Sounds like that's good news - no signs of an infectious disease killing them all.

[AndynJ]

I thought that was conclusive  One had a heart attack and the other died through a blockage after eating tissue?  Perhaps I'm reading it wrong.

Sorry yes your right, I was thinking of the others that had died July/August

[AndynJ]

Sounds like that's good news - no signs of an infectious disease killing them all.

Must say it was actually nice to hear that they were in tip top condition, the vet gave our name to someone who rang last night and bought our hybrid layers, their going this morning, we are sticking with rare ish breeds, legbars, speckled sussex, lavenders, cuckoo marans, rennes maran, welsummers.
We are breeding next year for sale, we are having layers again just took the opportunity to clear out so we can reorganise the birds, building breeding pens at the moment.