Observations of Xanthomatosis in Chickens

XANTHOMATOSIS, a tumor-like con-dition affecting primarily the skin and wattles of chickens, apparently has in-creased in incidence in recent years. Nieberle (1949) reported a xanthoma in a parrot but failed to describe the con-dition. A localized lesion in a horse was re-ported by Nitsche (1930). Jarmai (1938) described a generalized case in a horse. The literature contains several reports in which xanthomatosis in humans was ap-parently related to hepatic involvement, as for example, jaundice (Stolzer, 1950) or hepatic damage (Chanutin and Ludewig, 1937). The first report of this condition in chickens was that of Peckham (1955). He observed the condition in two strains of White Leghorns in the same pen. There were equal numbers of strains A and B, but 40 percent morbidity occurred in the birds of Strain A, whereas, only 2 percent mor-bidity was observed in birds of Strain B. Birds of varying ages in adjoining pens were not affected. Peckham was unable to correlate the condition in chickens to the disease in man or other animals, nor was he able to determine the etiology. Corner et al. (1959) reported xanthoma-tosis in two flocks of White Leghorns in Canada. The flocks were widely separated and the etiology was not determined. Additional evidence that xanthomatosis is restricted to no particular area is con-tained in reports from Alabama (Roberts