Hen with a sex change (contains graphic autopsy photos)

I have heard of hens developing rooster characteristics but have never experienced or seen it myself until approximately 6 weeks ago.  Just into the new year this 1 ½ year old hen of mine started growing a very large comb (I would say over a couple/three weeks??).  At first, I just thought she was coming back into lay but noted she was not actually laying any eggs. Hmmm...  When her comb became really big I realized she likely had a hormonal imbalance and was having a sex change.  I did a little reading about what would cause this.  Possible causes are a damaged or infected ovary, ovarian cyst, ovarian tumor, adrenal gland disorder, or even possibly moldy feed.  From what I could tell, is not a condition that is reversible.

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Of course this had to be one of my favourite friendly hens.  She was always first to jump on my lap (or my shoulder or even my head if I was bent over doing chores and lap wasn’t available).  She loved to snuggle under my “wing” or put her head on my shoulder and hide her head in my hair (which is really short so she really had to work at this).  She was a real sweetie.

About 4 weeks into her sex change, she wasn’t coming for snuggles very often.  About 6 weeks in she was looking very "huddley" and generally looking miserable.  At that point, I knew she wasn't feeling well and likely in pain, so I made the decision to euthanize her.  I did post mortem to see if I could tell what had caused her sex change and to put my mind at ease about whether I made the right decision to euthanize her.

**Graphic autopsy photos to follow.   Probably best to exit this thread if you don’t wish to view**

I am posting pictures in hopes that some may find this information useful and to get some feedback about my conclusions.

I know for sure that my sweet little girlie was suffering, probably in enormous pain and that my decision to euthanize her was correct.

Here are the autopsy pictures:

View of her abdomen after removing the sternum (breast bone):

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I’ve removed most of the fat covering her organs. Liver, heart and gizzard were all normal. I think that great huge ball is an ovarian cyst. The “whitey stuff” above the intestines is the oviduct.

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A close up of what I think is a huge ovarian cyst covered with tumors.

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At this point I stopped because I didn’t have a facemask on and was unsure about exposure. Seeing what I thought were tumors made me nervous about digging around any further. I wrapped her up in the open feedbag I had laid her on and put her in the burning barrel to incinerate and disinfected everything around where I opened her up.

How interesting!

I don't know about chickens, but in horses, mares can develop a granulosa cell tumour which can make them act very studdy, even to the point of mounting other mares.

Don't know about the cyst, but what you think are tumours there just look like undeveloped yolks to me. I'm guessing you've never processed a hen before?

I don't disagree that that was probably a cyst, and by the colour of those yolks she was having reproductive issues, but depending on her breed, that isn't that large of a comb. A sex change would need to include a change in sex feathers.

I've processed a lot of roosters but not too many hens.  I considered that all those were ova but if I compare to normal, they aren't quite normal looking.  To me they resembled more closely the pathology pictures I saw of an ovarian cyst covered in tumors.  They definitely could just be ova though and I'm for sure no expert.  You think that might have been an ovarian cyst though.  It was huge!

Hard to judge size without something to compare it to but her comb was double the size of her normal and what is normal in my flock.  Here she is conversing with a rooster before she started acting like she wasn't feeling well.  Her comb is not quite a big as his but close.

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This is what looks like normal for my flock.

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I am sure that is just a yolk.

If a rooster is not present in a flock hens will somtimes take on that role and may even develop spurs