7month old hen, pendulous crop and water belly, and just laid first egg

[Kpeck]

Hi all. I joined over the summer bc a chick became ill soon after bringing her home. Same chick is now 7 months old, her crop was hanging down, hard and full yesterday morning. I’ve been massaging and it felt sandy after. I gave her olive oil and a lot of water, and made her a crop bra. She pooped a lot -alternating regular poop, watery poop and poop filled with pebbles and stones. Then laid her first egg. I gave her colace in scrambled eggs because she was starving. She hasn’t pooped since the colace. I just felt between her legs, it feels like it’s filled with water. What do I do? Can I save her? She’s the friendliest and most curious of the group and I don’t want to lose her. Thank you for any help.

 

[Eggcessive]

What has she been eating? Was she overweight? It is unusual but possible for a 7 month old pullet to have water belly. Have you provided granite grit for her gizzard to grind her food? How long has she had a pendulous crop? A pendulous crop and impacted crop are not cured overnight. I would continue to massage several times a day. Chilled coconut oil can also be offered to her. @azygous has a good article on crop disorders which you may have read:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...w-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/

 

[Kpeck]

What has she been eating? Was she overweight? It is unusual but possible for a 7 month old pullet to have water belly. Have you provided granite grit for her gizzard to grind her food? How long has she had a pendulous crop? A pendulous crop and impacted crop are not cured overnight. I would continue to massage several times a day. Chilled coconut oil can also be offered to her. @azygous has a good article on crop disorders which you may have read:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...w-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/

Thank you for the quick response. She has been on the starter feed as none of them were laying yet. They have sand in their run and their coop, and free range every couple days for a few hours, so they did not always have separate grit. I wouldn’t say she is overweight, she is a barred rock and a decent size in comparison to our white leghorn but similar to our Easter egger. Her crop looked full during the day for the past week but Not obviously full in the morning until yesterday. I will do the coconut oil tomorrow morning. There are still a lot of pebbles in her crop. Idk if she was eating so many because she was trying to get calcium as we hadn’t put oyster shells out or changed the feed since no one was laying yet until she did today. She didn’t immediately jump down from the roost this morning but was jumping on and off the indoor roost today after she pooped a lot. Aside from that, she’s behaving pretty normally. I don’t know if she was born with something not functioning properly as we never found out what was wrong when she was younger but it took me a month to get her healthy with syringe feeding water and high calorie powder food from the vet around the clock. She slept on me for many nights through that time and we threw every fix we could at her then. Do you think it would take 4-5 months for something congenital to cause another problem?

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Photos of her and her poop?

 

[Kpeck]

Sorry they are all with toilet paper but that’s how I was cleaning it up in her little emergency playpen. Some poops looked more normal than the one photo. Many poops were sand and pebbles. The pebble in my hand was in one of her poops with many others - it seems really big to me. Some were more watery some really seemed pretty normal. She’s lying down in her crate in the dark so I will follow up with a pic of her. Do you think it’s an impacted gizzard?

 

[Kpeck]

 

[Kpeck]

Photos of her and her poop?

Most recent poop and Lucky in her bed for the night. I thought these uploaded but maybe I put in wrong post. I took a picture through this site of one of the stones which was about the size of the blue circle (penny for size perspective) but its back in the garbage and I can’t find it now. It looks like big stones compared to the Grit I have for them. Poop looks pretty normal with the white urites ? I think the white portion is called on top and then a bunch of pebbles and stones which seems abnormal to me since there’s been so many poops filled with basically just stones and sand.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Awww...Sweet Girl!

Is she able to get up and move around, eat/drink on her own, interact with her flock?

If she is, then I'd leave her with her flock and just treat her twice a day for the crop problem.

I would provide her with her normal food. Could be she's eating a lot of grit/sand and the gizzard is getting impacted, hard to know. Since we think it's impacted, give her 10ml Tomato Juice twice a day for 5 days, see if that helps get things moving.

 

[Kpeck]

Awww...Sweet Girl!

Is she able to get up and move around, eat/drink on her own, interact with her flock?

If she is, then I'd leave her with her flock and just treat her twice a day for the crop problem.

I would provide her with her normal food. Could be she's eating a lot of grit/sand and the gizzard is getting impacted, hard to know. Since we think it's impacted, give her 10ml Tomato Juice twice a day for 5 days, see if that helps get things moving.

Yes she can eat on her own and do chicken things. I think she ate a ton of sand and pebbles. The crop was pretty empty this morning but a bit mushy. She stayed in last night and I didn’t let her out of her playpen yesterday so I could monitor what she was eating and pooping. She was still pooping out a lot of sand. Do you think I need to treat for sour crop even if I don’t smell her breath? I don’t have a great sense of smell. Should I do the tomato juice if I continue to see her pooping a lot of sand and if her crop doesn’t empty tonight. She’s been out with the rest of the girls all day today. Thanks so much for your help!

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Yes she can eat on her own and do chicken things. I think she ate a ton of sand and pebbles. The crop was pretty empty this morning but a bit mushy. She stayed in last night and I didn’t let her out of her playpen yesterday so I could monitor what she was eating and pooping. She was still pooping out a lot of sand. Do you think I need to treat for sour crop even if I don’t smell her breath? I don’t have a great sense of smell. Should I do the tomato juice if I continue to see her pooping a lot of sand and if her crop doesn’t empty tonight. She’s been out with the rest of the girls all day today. Thanks so much for your help!

Glad to hear she was with the girls today.

You may want to bring her in at roosting time so you can see her nightly poop and it will make it easier for you to check her morning crop to see if it's emptying (check first thing in the morning before she eats/drinks).

You can give the juice if you wish, it can help get things moving sometimes. It won't hurt her to have it.

I wonder if she's looking for larger suitable pieces of grit amongst the sand. Do you also provide Grit (Crushed Granite)? If you don't, you may want to do that to see if this keeps her from eating sand. Attach a small cup or feeder to a post in your run, put the grit in that, they will pick out pieces now and again as needed.