Up to 30 to 35% of domestic hens develop ovarian cancer by the time they are 2.5 years old (Fredrickson,1987).   This number is criminal.  In 1910, this number was less than 3%.  

We all know that frequent inflammation is a risk for cancer.  When you breed chickens to lay 300 eggs per year as opposed to the 12 God designed them to lay, its going to cause cancer.

Most female domestic or wild species are generally pregnant, lactating, or seasonally anestrus throughout their adult lives. This is not the case with the commercial laying chicken, which has been selected to ovulate persistently. That is, most laying strains of hens ovulate at near 24 h intervals and, consequently, lay an egg almost daily. Coincidentally, the chicken is also the only animal model that spontaneously develops ovarian adenocarcinoma at a high rate. The correlation between ovulation rate and prevalence of ovarian cancer was apparent early on (Fathalla,1971) and led to the hypothesis that susceptibility to the disease is related to “incessant ovulation” and/or the events associated with this. Epidemiological studies in women have indicated that ovarian epithelial cancer is age-related and that there is an increased risk associated with nulliparity, family history, and use of hormone replacement therapy (Whittemore et al.,1992). In contrast, pregnancy and use of oral contraceptives are associated with decreased prevalence of the disease (Sueblinvong and Carney,2009). Additionally, multiple pregnancies and increased duration of oral contraceptive use further decrease risk (Collaborative Group,2008). 

Henrietta is a family member at the sanctuary. She is 2 years & 10 months old.  She is a black australorp.  She weighs 9 1/2 pounds and is a gentle giant.  Henrietta was diagnosed with reproductive cancer.  Her timeline is here to help anyone who has a hen with this unnecessary deadly disease. 

The beginning of Henrietta's cancer most likely began months before we noticed.  However, we spend hours a day with our chickens and try to pick up any early warning signs.   With Henrietta, because she was in a hard molt, we first assigned symptoms to molting.  When Henrietta went into the coop and immediately sat down, we took her to the vet.  X-rays and ultrasound showed a large tumor in the coelomic cavity.  Our vet gave her "generously" one month, and told us there was only palliative care.  She gave us Meloxicam.  We had the X-ray and ultrasound overread. This picture is of her in the car going to the vet.

We went home and talked.  We decided to have the vet euthanized because this death had a lot of suffering  The day came and we went to the office.  The vet came in.  My grandson and I were crying and I told her I couldn't do it.  Then I went to work.  Review of research showed that we could prolong her life with a Deslorins implant.  Our vet said she could not order it and would lose her license if she implanted it.  I searched for a way to buy without a prescription.  After roughly 11-hours of searching I moved to an alternative, Luponlide Acetate.  I found a pharmacy to buy it in India.  I injected her first dose on March 27th, 2025.  

Since 3/13/25, Henrietta is in the house.  She always has another hen with her, even to sleep.  She goes outside about an hour a day and loves to dust bath.  We are at 5-weeks since the diagnosis, and still eating, drinking and walking.  She has some pain in the morning before getting Meloxicam.  We know this by her fast beak clicking.  We started an antibiotic because she was sneezing and had mucous.  We continued Meloxicam.  On April 15th we injected the second Lupronlide Acetate injection.