Clinical Article

DEATH OF PEAFOWL CHICK (PAVO CRISTATUS) DUE TO FOREIGN BODY IN THE GIZZARD: A CASE REPORT

Xiaoxia Du^1,2, Ahrar Khan^1,3,*, Weiwei Zhou¹, Yingying Gao¹, and Bayi Jiang^1*

¹Shandong Vocational Animal Science and Veterinary College, Weifang, 261061, China

²Department of Biological Sciences, Central Washington University, Ellensburg, Washington, 98926, USA

³Department of Pathology, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad 38040, Pakistan

*Corresponding author’s email: ahrar1122@yahoo.com; sdmyxyjby@163.com

ABSTRACT

Pheasants occupy the most auspicious place among the birds kept by many people at home. Among pheasants, one of the most beautiful birds is the common peafowl. The peafowls are omnivorous in nature. They can eat seeds, plants, fruits, insects, ants, flies, snakes, and amphibians. They prefer to live in farmlands, bushlands, forests, and other regions with access to low height trees, and prefer to live near the human tenancies. They may eat such inanimate materials along with food, especially eating inanimate materials increased when kept in houses. A peafowl chick died after about 10 days of illness in this case study. Post-mortem revealed congested buccal mucosa. The tongue was dragged down by a thread wrapped around its base. The thread through the esophagus went into the proventriculus and entered the gizzard. The proventriculus was hemorrhagic; however, the gizzard did not show any lesion. The proventriculus measured 4.5 cm length x 1.5 cm width while the gizzard was 3.5 cm length x 2.5 cm width. The inanimate materials present in the gizzard were having length 3.5 cm and width 1.5 cm. The thread was of nylon and tied up inanimate material was made of nylon/cotton threads and human hairs. Nylon thread was so lengthy that it went into the gizzard in double layer and led to the death of the peafowl chick. This chick could have been saved if presented for treatment 2-3 days earlier by pulling out inanimate materials via proventriculus and esophagus. When peafowls are in the backyards or in the houses, people need to ensure that nothing (inanimate material) is available for them to swallow while they are set free for sometimes. 

https://doi.org/10.36899/JAPS.2022.1.0428
Published online June 14, 2021

INTRODUCTION

Pheasants occupy the most auspicious place among the most widespread birds kept by many people. Because of having diversity of colors in their feathers and shape, pheasants have the greatest ornamental value not only in Pakistan but also throughout the world (Abrar et al., 2017). Among pheasants, the Indian peafowl (Pavo cristatus) is the most beautiful, also known as the common peafowl. The peacock has the highest place in domestic birds due to its astounding colorful plumages. Swaggering about the yard, it demands attention, its shimmering feathers superb in the sun. The common peafowl has many vernacular names like Mohr (India and Pakistan), Blauer pfau (German), Monara (Ceylon), and Paon blue (French) in various regions of the world (Ahuja et al., 1992; Zou and Wu, 2005).

The common or Indian Peafowl (Pavo cristatus) belongs to family Phasianidae (Roberts 1991; Yasmin and Yahya 2000), subfamily Povoninae (Norapuck 1986), and the order Galliformes (Kushwaha and Kumar, 2016). The Common Peafowl is widely distributed in the Indian subcontinent (Rajeshkumar and Balasubramanian, 2011). In Pakistan, majority of its population exists in the southeastern region of Sindh province; however, its minor population is available in northeastern border areas of the Punjab province (Akbar et al., 2005; Anwar et al., 2015). Other than these people are keeping in pockets in various cities in the form of small zoos or keeping them individually in houses. Peafowls prefer to live in forests and show affinity to moist, dry deciduous, and semiarid environment (Abrar et al., 2017). They prefer agricultural fields, good vegetation, and near to human tenancies (Dookia et al., 2015). Peacock keeping is not a new to the subcontinent (Anonymous, 2019), so many people have been in possession as ornamental birds in their houses in some countries.

The common peafowls are omnivorous, thus consuming seeds, plants, fruit, insects, ants, flies, snakes, and amphibians. Around cultivated areas, peafowl feeds on a wide range of crops, such as tomato, chilly, groundnut, paddy, bajra, garden plants, and even bananas (Dookia et al., 2015; Abrar et al., 2017). To help with the breakdown of their food, peafowl ingests pebbles, which are stored in their gizzard and help in grinding of grains (Jackson, 2006). As peafowls are omnivorous in nature and live in the areas close to human habitations, they may eat such inanimate materials along with food, especially eating inanimate materials increased when kept in the houses.

The hind part of the stomach is the gizzard and is a disc-shaped and highly muscular, especially modified for grinding of food (Chittora et al., 2020). Gizzard receives ingesta from proventriculus and empties into the duodenum. The gizzard has a thick muscular wall and may contain small stones, or gastroliths, which helps in the mechanical breakdown of seeds and other foods (Svihus, 2011); however, inanimate eaten materials could not be ground and digested by the gizzard and could be fatal when the ingested foreign body is bigger than the outer orifice.

Case History and Diagnosis: The owner bought 6 peafowl chicks of 3-5 days age on 14 July 2020 in Pakistan. All birds were kept in a wire cage and let them free for 15 minutes twice daily in the morning and evening. They were offered bread, eggs and broiler feed (16% protein) along with water ad libitum. All birds were doing well till 25 August 2020 (45-47 days old), out of these, one chick showed symptoms of common flu and was isolated and treated with Trimodin (M/S Nawan Laboratories (Pvt) Ltd, Karachi, Pakistan) @ 1 mL/4 L water for 5 days and it was cured. Owner said that this peafowl chick had also eaten cotton thread 7 days ago that was seen and pulled out. On 4 September 2020, this peafowl chick died (about two months age). Another history included it was off feed for the last 5 days and becoming weak day by day, and its beak was being dragged down. Even though it was supported by eggs, water feeding, and mineral supplementation (Aquavit, M/S NOA HEMIS Pharmaceuticals, Animal Health Division, Karachi, Pakistan), the peafowl chick died.

Post-mortem was conducted as per standard protocol under the day light at the Diagnostic Laboratory, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad. The tongue was dragged down by a thread wrapped around its base (Figure 1). The buccal mucosa was inflamed and at some places necrosed (Figure 2). The thread through the esophagus passed the proventriculus and entered the gizzard (Figure 2). The proventriculus was hemorrhagic; however, the gizzard did not show any lesion (Figure 3; Figure 5B and C). The thread was of nylon and the tied up inanimate material was made of nylon/cotton threads and human hairs (Figure 4). Nylon thread was so lengthy that it went into the gizzard in double layer. The proventriculus measured 4.5 cm length (Figure 5A) and 1.5 cm width (Figure 5B) while the gizzard was 3.5 cm length (Figure 5A) and 2.5 cm width (Figure 5B). The inanimate materials present in the gizzard had a length of 3.5 cm (Figure 5C) and a width of 1.5 cm (Figure 5D). Intestines were partially empty. Other organs, including lungs, liver, heart, kidneys, and intestines appeared to be normal.

Figure 1: Neck of peafowl dissected showing tongue pulled down (arrow).		Figure 2: Neck of peafowl dissected showing tongue pulled down, inflamed, and necrosed buccal mucosa (white arrow) and nylon thread after wrapping tongue going to esophagus (red arrow)
Figure 3: Nylon thread through the proventriculus entering gizzard (arrow).		Figure 4: Nylon thread tied-up with inanimate material, such as cotton threads and human hairs.

Figure 5: The proventriculus showing hemorrhagic lesions (arrow) and measuring 4.5 cm in length (A) and 1.5 cm width (B) while the gizzard was 3.5cm length (A) and 2.5 cm width (B). The inanimate materials in the gizzard had a length of 3.5 cm (C) and a width of 1.5 cm (D).

DISCUSSION

Death in peafowl chick is usually because of non-infectious (Champour and Ojrati, 2014; Akram et al., 2019; Chittora et al., 2020) or infectious causes (Khan et al., 2009; Domanska and Bartczak, 2019; Ibrahim et al., 2020; Lai et al., 2020; Mehmood et al., 2020). In non-infectious causes, different foreign bodies, such as nails, blades, needles, wooden splinters, sticks, coins, buttons, and wires in the digestive tract could lead to death (El-Shammaa et al., 2019). Aruljothi et al. (2007) reported stainless steel blades in the gizzard of broiler chicken during routine post-mortem of bird. A coin lodged in between isthmus and proventriculus wall in the digestive system of peafowl has been reported (Galav et al., 2010) that reduced GIT motility thus the intestinal lumen was devoid of feed contents.

Hayati et al. (2011) reported a needle in proventriculus common mynah, which was removed surgically by ventriculotomy. Raisi et al. (2019) removed tangled sewing elastic band from the ventricular of Mynah by celiotomy technique. Adamcak et al. (2000) reported a string of 7 cm long in proximal part of the large intestine. Chittora et al. (2020) reported presence of an unusual foreign body like button, hard plastic material inside the gizzard of Indian peafowl.

Wells (1984) reported foreign bodies in the crop, proventriculus, and gizzard. Wagner (2005) reported linear foreign bodies like a string can extend into intestines. Foreign body ingestion in birds could be the result of their curious nature or their compulsive impelling for food (Hayati et al., 2011). Environmental stressors, such as sudden placement in unfamiliar surroundings housing may also result from foreign body ingestion (Morishita, 1999; Mousa et al., 2019). Musa et al. (2011) reported nails of various sizes, nuts, bolts, wires and sharp objects like pieces of palm kennel shells and wood of various sizes as the major causes of traumatic ventriculitis. Shrivastav et al. (1992) also have reported traumatic ventriculitis in a peacock.

The common peafowls are omnivorous in nature and lives in area close to human habitations. Peafowls may eat such inanimate materials along with food. Eating inanimate materials increased when kept in houses, especially seen in this case. The hypothesis is that this chick had not eaten all these inanimate materials at one time because chick was eating and drinking normally till day 5 before death as the composition of the inanimate material is cotton threads, human hairs, and nylon thread. Before eating nylon thread, chick was eating and drinking normally because all inanimate material was within the gizzard and that was working normally. Gizzard, the hind part of the stomach is highly muscular especially modified for grinding of food (Svihus, 2011; Chittora et al., 2020). Afterward, nylon thread was eaten that become wrapped around the tongue and was long enough that went into gizzard in a double layer. As the gizzard is grinding the food, the eaten nylon thread was being pulled down and becoming mixed with the other thread/hairs already eating (Figure 3). Inanimate eaten materials could not be ground and digested by the gizzard and could not pass down because tied-up of the tongue with nylon thread that was the main hindrance in passing this material down to the intestines.

Conclusion: The peafowl chicks have a habit eating everything coming in their way. This chick could have been saved if presented for treatment 2-3 days earlier by removing the nylon thread pulled out via proventriculus and esophagus. People keeping peafowl in backyards or in the houses, must ensure that nothing (inanimate material) is available for them to swallow while these are set free for sometimes.

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