5 month old Americauna hen with very swollen, very soft gullet.

[lunarrabbit]

I have a five-month old Americauna hen. She is smaller than her sisters, but I didn't think that was a problem. However, when I picked her up a couple days ago, she was extremely light and thin. Her gullet was so very full and soft that I thought maybe she had recently eaten, but it never gets any smaller and is actually even more swollen today. She is not lethargic, exactly. She spends a lot of time roosting, but she does come down to see me when I check on her. She did eat today when I fed the flock.

Now she has bare patches on her skin like she is molting.

She hasn't started laying yet, of course.

She and her sisters live in a chicken tractor. Our weather has been sometimes sunny, or mostly cloudy and lots of rainy days...temperature lows about 45 and highs about 50.

She and her sisters had been eating Flock Raiser crumble until about 3 weeks ago, when they started eating the Layena pellets that we feed our laying hens. They also have plenty of oyster shell available to them. No other hens have these symptoms.

I looked through the dirty straw to see if there were worms in the stool, but I didn't see anything.

I am not well-seasoned in raising hens, but I've been doing it only a couple years and this is the first time I've encountered this problem.

So any help is much appreciated!

 

[Miss Lydia]

could be sour crop or impacted crop, can you smell anything coming from her mouth sour crop will smell. I have not had this problem and don't want to give the wrong advise, hopefully soemone else will be able to help shortly. just found this maybe it will help,
http://sites.google.com/site/moodysbantams/poultry-health-1/crop-impaction

 

[ipana]

lunarrabbit, sorry about your little hen. Yes, it sounds as though the crop is not emptying so it could be sour crop or impacted crop. Either way, the bird is not getting nutrition. Are you able to monitor her enough to know if she's pooping? That is a key to whether any food at all is getting into her digestive tract.
If possible, isolate her so that you can monitor her food and her poop. I'm going to try to find a thread and post the link to it where there is information that may help you. If you pick your bird up and she feels like she has lost weight, you will need to do some immediate care for her.

Yes, you need to get this bird to vomit. But, a more helpful way, I think, is to flush the crop. By using a feeding tube and syringe without a needle, inject warm water into the crop. Depending on how full the crop is now, you could inject 60cc+ of warm water. With the water in there, massage the crop to help loosen what is causing it to be blocked and then hold the bird upside down, making certain that her head is always down. If she lifts her head, liquid can pool in her mouth and she may aspirate it into her lungs which could possibly kill her. There is an opening to the lungs in the mouth toward the back of and under the tongue. Flush her a couple of times and try to get as much of the junk out as possible. I held my bird over the toilet so I could see what was coming out. That will help you to know what's causing the problem and you can keep her away from that stuff after she recovers as it may cause the same problem again.

Do not keep feeding the bird anything other than soft food. The food isn't going through so it is only making the problem worse. If she is pooping some, that's a good thing but she needs soft food. I used diluted baby food through the syringe. If she'll eat it herself, it doesn't have to be so dilute. Someone who is studying to be a vet cautioned that using baby food with garlic or onion powder is not good for birds long term as it causes hemolytic anemia. I doubt that you will be using baby food long term but keep that in mind.

I'll paste a couple of links for you. One is pictures of poop so that you can compare your hen's poop to the pictures and get some info about where she is. Another is a first aid site where (if you scroll down) you can see a crop tube set up and instructions. I will also look for a link to a thread here for more info. Keep us posted. We hope you can save your hen.

http://www.chat.allotment.org.uk/index.php?topic=17568.0

http://www.broodyhen.co.uk/ket/fowlnotfoul/1staid.htm

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=442100

If you have questions, please feel free to post them.

 

[lunarrabbit]

Thank you both very much for your advice. I will try these things and see what I can do. Again I really appreciate your help.