i have been watching this site and reading on impacted crop for about a week now. approx 3 weeks ago i noticed my fav hen not roosting at night, it has been very cold up here in northern michigan so i brought her in and put her in a dog crate in the basement. she ate almost nothing and did nothing but sit (no scratching or henny-pecking). i first thought she had gapeworm because she kept stretching her neck and looked like she was gasping, so i went to the feed store and got some ivermectin horse wormer. i wormed her and my other 3 with a pencil eraser sized amount. this seemed to improve her and after a few days i thought she could go back out with the others. it went bad from the start. the other girls knew she wasn't well and laid right into her. she didn't even try to fight back, so back she came into the basement. as i was carrying her in, and petting her, i noticed a hard bulge in her crop. that's when i started my impacted crop research. i mixed up some tomato paste, olive oil, and ensure, passed a tube down and gave her about 30 cc's of mixture. i then massaged her crop until it felt mushy not doughy. i have been tube feeding her 2x a day, up to 60's, with a mostly ensure mix and massage after each feeding to try to break up the mass. i know some of it was getting thru, she was getting feistier. however yesterday i decided she could not live in the basement on tube feedings forever, even though my husband kinda liked her there. i figured she would starve to death if i stopped feeding her, and if she died because of the surgery at least she would die trying. my husband keeps his mountain bike trainer down in the basement and started calling her "coach". so..... i made the decision to remove the impaction. i spread out my instruments on a clean towel right under a spotlight. i had iodine swabs, a brand new sterilized exacto knife blade, rubber hospital gloves, some steri-strips, a maxi-pad (for bandaging) and some vet wrap.. i wrapped coach loosely in a towel, and had a friend stand opposite me and loosely hold her. i had her head covered, figuring if it was dark she would be more settled. with my friends stabilizing her, i cleaned her upper crop area with with betadine swabs, (if i ever do this again i will have a bottle of betadine, i will also soap and water the crop area first. i think it would be easier if the feathers were wet and out of the way. her feather are so poofy!). i then carefully cut open her skin and her crop bulged out. i cut open her crop and old tube feeding material came out. i put a gloved finger in the hole and pulled out about half a cup of straw-stuff, and squished out as much of the old tube feeding as we could. we dried the area and tried to steri-strip it but it did not stick well, so we went right to the bandaging. i loosely vet wrapped the maxi-pad up and down over the incision. we set her in her cage to rest. after 15 minutes of resting we checked her, she was laying in exactly the same position we had put her in, but she wasn't liking the bandage so we removed the dressing. the incision dripped about 6 drops of tube feeding stuff, but no blood. the whole thing was amazingly bloodless, literally, not one drop. she was standing and moving. 45 minutes after surgery she pooped, no drainage since the first 6 drops. its been 1.5 hours since surgery, no more drainage, she is up and standing. i plan to keep her with nothing to eat or drink for about 6 hours, then just water, and see if anything drains. tomorrow morning if the incision looks closed i will start her on applesauce, yogurt, liquids and stay on that diet for a few days, and then progress from there. go coach!!!!
days after doing the surgery, i would add 2 more things, 1) super glue works REALLY great for chicken incision closure, make sure you do two layers ( the crop itself, then the skin) i have superglue with a small brush on the end, and i used tweezers to close and hold the incision, and 2) i would take more time on the procedure, i got anxious and hurried and now i wonder if i got all the impaction out even tho she seems to be doing ok. i think 10 minutes on the table would not be harder on the chicken than 5 or 7. once the wound was closed and dry, i went to soft food like scrambled egg, pasta etc.
3/4/10 12 days post-op, went out this morning and coach had died overnight. i knew she was bad yesterday and had made a decision to end it for her today. i am so relieved i didn't have to. it would have made me throw up. i did a necropysy. the skin closure with superglue healed perfectly. the crop had not closed at all. there was a hole, infected and black. fyi you really need to suture the crop. i was wondering if i would find impaction material in her crop, and there wasn't. i was a little surprised. maybe..... i shoulda.....coulda.....woulda,,, man, those "shouda, woulda, coulda"'s, they'll get you every time. next time, god forbid, i'll know how to handle this. RIP coach
days after doing the surgery, i would add 2 more things, 1) super glue works REALLY great for chicken incision closure, make sure you do two layers ( the crop itself, then the skin) i have superglue with a small brush on the end, and i used tweezers to close and hold the incision, and 2) i would take more time on the procedure, i got anxious and hurried and now i wonder if i got all the impaction out even tho she seems to be doing ok. i think 10 minutes on the table would not be harder on the chicken than 5 or 7. once the wound was closed and dry, i went to soft food like scrambled egg, pasta etc.
3/4/10 12 days post-op, went out this morning and coach had died overnight. i knew she was bad yesterday and had made a decision to end it for her today. i am so relieved i didn't have to. it would have made me throw up. i did a necropysy. the skin closure with superglue healed perfectly. the crop had not closed at all. there was a hole, infected and black. fyi you really need to suture the crop. i was wondering if i would find impaction material in her crop, and there wasn't. i was a little surprised. maybe..... i shoulda.....coulda.....woulda,,, man, those "shouda, woulda, coulda"'s, they'll get you every time. next time, god forbid, i'll know how to handle this. RIP coach
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