Hawthorn Poisoning?

[dinosaw]

We had a sudden death of one of our growers during the night last night and found the body in the coop this morning. She had seemed perfectly fine yesterday morning so it was a bit of surprise. On doing an autopsy I found that her lower intestine and ceca were absolutely full of foamy caecaly fluid, her crop was empty and her liver was a bit paler than I would have expected on a 20 week old bird. What surprised me was when I cut open the gizzard, there were around 70 pips in there which I am fairly sure are from hawthorn berries looking at the size and shape of them. Looking into it, it would seem that while the berries themselves are not poisonous, the seeds contain a compound which in humans at least can break down into hydrogen cyanide. Wild birds don't seem to have any problems with the seeds but then they probably dont gorge themselves on about 70 of them either. I am wondering if anyone else either has any thoughts or has experience of their chickens eating hawthorns and falling ill, given the sudden nature and lack of symptoms this is the only thing I can come up with that fits.

 

[chrismahon]

This is something I have never heard of before Dinosaw. Our usual rule of thumb is if wild birds eat it then it's OK. They won't touch wild strawberries and when we fed them to ours we found out why- immediately 3 cases of sour crop! We have one eating some berries at the moment that the blackbirds love, so I hope she doesn't keel over. The only other thing here the wild birds eat is blackberries and cherries. None of them touch fallen fruit and we know from experience that the natural sugars can upset the gut bacteria and also, with pears, the yeast on the skins can get them drunk.

Worth checking the poos of the others to see if they have also been eating hawthorn, because if they have and are alright it may be a case of botulism?

 

[dinosaw]

Thanks Chris, thought I could rely on you for a helpful reply. I hadn't considered botulism and there is quite a bit of rotting matter around at the moment which is difficult to control. How quickly can a bird go from showing no symptoms to death do you know?, it was less than 18 hours in this case. I have kept the rest of the birds confined for the moment as a precaution. They have been eating berries including presumably hawthorn looking at their poo, but whether it has been on the scale of this bird I don't know. I have to say I was taken aback by the sheer quantity of seeds in the gizzard given that they are a fair bit bigger than grape seeds, just the seeds in there with some grit, nothing else.

 

[chrismahon]

If you remember last year I posted of our first case of possible botulism after raking up rotting leaves from their run. She went from fine to collapsed in a few hours and was given Epsom Salts to flush out her system (Gale Damerow suggestion) and is still with us as a result. However, as you said, it could be a question of quantity even if all are eating them. We are now raking up the leaves every few days, rather than leaving them. It also helps to preserve the grass as it dies off quickly when there is a leaf covering.

 

[dinosaw]

So it is a distinct possibility then. It's quite a job here with leaves, just so many trees. They run virtually continuously around the whole border but I probably have let them settle more than last year.

 

[rick]

I don’t think it would the hawthorn pips. Cyanide is in many Rosacea pips but they have to be crushed/chewed to release it. The pip is designed to go right through intact to be dispersed and usually by much smaller birds than chickens.
But its odd isn't it? Mine turn their beaks up to hawthorn fruit (or did when I brought some back from a walk one day.) 70 pips together and not moving through seems odd.

I guess it would be possible though - if a big pile of fruit was rotting and had broken down the seed coat then was all eaten in one go? Probably not very appetising even for a chicken!

 

[dinosaw]

The other birds seem fine today, I guess I will never know for sure but your input on the seeds is appreciated Rick, I didn't know if cyanide could be produced from the coating if the seeds lay in situ for long enough. Anyway here are the pictures of the ceca and intestines plus most of the contents of the gizzard, probably another 7 or 8 seeds left in it so closer to 60 than 70 as it turns out.

 

[chrismahon]

I would have expected the seeds in the gizzard to have been ground up and not whole. Can't see any grit amongst them either. I don't think it is a digestive impaction as it would stink. But Botulism causes muscle paralysis and that could be what stopped the gizzard movement and ultimately her heart?

 

[rick]

Poor girl! Just to complete the seed notes - when the seed coat breaks down then various chemicals from within can leach out. From the seed's point of view these are mostly inhibitors that stop it from germinating too early (one form of 'dormancy'). If it was the pips then I think they would have to have been degraded before eaten.

 

[dinosaw]

There were about 6-7 bits of grit in there but those pips are incredibly hard and that amount would take some breaking down, still they should have been passable. One last thing as I didn't find her, Mrs Dinosaw says she was stretched out straight when she found her, which I suppose would be indicative of some form of spasming. I'll chalk it down to probable Botulism then. Thanks for the the input from you both.

 

[dinosaw]

Just a footnote to all this. Because the growers are now being confined and we are only a couple of weeks from having to worm them it seemed the right time to cut down on the excess boys (there are 5 of them). Took three of them this morning and two things to come out of preparing them were.

1) Even after 60 hours with no access to the outside there were still 7-8 pips in each gizzard, though they were full of pellets and a smattering of grit. That shows how long these things can hang around in the digestive system.

2) I said that the liver on the dead girl was paler than I would have expected at her age, but as it has been a year since I last killed a bird of that age it was hard to assess just how much paler. On seeing the comparison today of the lovely dark red healthy livers on these boys it was clearly in very bad shape.

 

[rick]

Fascinating! It makes me wonder how gizzards manage to retain the grit and whether its the size (and whether its the same system that’s retaining the pips.) If it was a like sink U-bend it would be gravity and rate of water flow but things are a lot thicker in there - you would think that bits of grit would just be swept through!
Obviously chickens can handle the cyanide content of at least several hawthorn pips with no ill effect at all.