272 DWcu^cs of Poultry 



dent broken. There is a belief common amongst poultry- 

 men that this is always immediately fatal. There is but 

 little discussion of the subject in the literature, but our 

 experience here indicates that two sorts of results may follow 

 the breaking of an egg in the oviduct. These are : 



1. An inflammatory condition of the oviduct is induced 

 leading to copious secretion from the glands of the albumen 

 portion of the duct and the isthmus. There is also a copious 

 fibrous exudate, and the final outcome is a severe case of 

 complicated obstruction of the oviduct. Death in these 

 cases may be delayed for a long time after the original 

 accident. In the absence of inflammation recovery may 

 possibly occur. 



2, Death within a short time (2 to 3 hours) after the 

 breaking of the egg, without visible lesion of any organ of 

 the body. The oviduct is not even inflamed. Absolutely 

 the only things which are not normal in such cases are (a) 

 the broken egg in the oviduct, and (6) the fact that the bird 

 is dead. We have had several such cases come to autopsy. 

 They are very puzzling. In them is to be found the basis 

 for the poultryman's belief as to the fatal character of this 

 accident. In reality it seems probable that in these cases 

 the thing which caused the egg to be broken was also the 

 cause of the death of the bird. That is, a blow, or any sort 

 of sudden shock violent enough to break an egg in the ovi- 

 duct might also very well be the cause of death. Such cases 

 need further study. 



Abnormal Eggs 



Owing to various diseased conditions of the oviduct many 

 different kinds of abnormal eggs are j^roduced by fowls. 

 The explanation of the different types of such eggs is usually 

 tolerably clear if one gets definitely in his mind the normal 

 physiology of egg production as outlined above. We shall 



