Addt'l info on my sick pullett...Any info will be greatly appreciated

[augustmomx2]

I posted yesterday in regards to my sick pullet. She has not improved & now I'm not only worried for her, but for my entire flock. I do have her seperated from the others.

1) What type of bird , age and weight. White Rock, 5mos around 6lbs
2) What is the behavior, exactly.VERY lethargic, barely keeps her eyes open, droopy tail
3) Is there any bleeding, injury, broken bones or other sign of trauma.no
4) What happened, if anything that you know of, that may have caused the situation.I fed the girls some large pieces of grass, thought at first impacted crop? Her crop is not swollen but it has not emptied either, since yesterday
5) What has the bird been eating and drinking, if at all.She took a few licks off of my finger of yogurt yesterday and some mineral oil. Today, she's refusing anything no water, no food
6) How does the poop look? Normal? Bloody? Runny? etc. It very runny, and a white/yellow creamy color. She has pooped 2 times today and both times it was runny and yellow/white.
7) What has been the treatment you have administered so far? separation, small amount of mineral oil, massaged crop and felt for egg-bound (nothing felt)
8 ) What is your intent as far as treatment? For example, do you want to treat completely yourself, or do you need help in stabilizing the bird til you can get to a vet?I cannot take her to a vet. My dh will not allow us to spend $$ we don't have, on a chicken

9) If you have a picture of the wound or condition, please post it. It may help.
10) Describe the housing/bedding in use:9*5 coop with pine shavings, 20*10 covered run, with some dirt, mulch and sand. I have a total of 11 girls

I also want to note that she laid an egg today. It was broken on the bottom, but I'm not sure if its broken cuz she was laying on it, on a hard surface or if it came out broken. The shell was normal and the egg appeared to be normal as well.
I really appreciate any type of info, I have been searching all evening and I'm new to chickens, so I have no idea what the heck to do

 

[obe10]

this chart might help determine if her poop is normal http://www.chat.allotment.org.uk/index.php?topic=17568.0

 

[purpletree23]

Sounds like the grass may have caused an impacted crop. Does she and the others have access to chicken grit. If not get them some. See if she will eat the grit if she hasn't had access to it before. In the mean time until others can be of more help I would only give her soft foods such as her feed soaked in applesauce or gatorade until it is very mushy. Scrambled egg, yogurt or smushed strawberry. Her crop needs to empty but I don't know how to do that.

Please make sure she stays hydrated even if you have to give her water and gatorade with a dropper.

 

[Judy]

What is her usual feed? Do you offer grit and oyster shell on the side? Does the poo look like it could be the contents of an egg?

There are several threads on the FAQ page on impacted and sour crop. Usually the first approach is a little bread soaked in olive oil, or other veggie oil, to try to help stuff slide through. But I am wondering if this is more an egg problem since the poo sounds like it could be egg.

Do look over the impacted and sour crop threads, too.

 

[augustmomx2]

Quote:
Her usual feed is layena, I offer a little grit but there is quite a bit of sand that they eat as well. Are sand particles big enough? And I do not offer oyster shell

I know, some of the symptoms lean towards an impacted crop and the symptoms lean towards an egg issue

I'll just keep treating both. Try to get some olive/mineral oil down her & massage her crop. Poor girl

 

[Judy]

Easy with the mineral oil, it can prevent absorption of some vitamins. Otherwise, I'd probably do the same.

I have read conflicting opinions on offering the granite grit that they sell at TSC or wherever. Many claim there is plenty of stuff in their soil to grind up feed, and many others say nothing works nearly as well as the ground granite, so it should always be supplied unless you live where ground up granite bits are in the soil. Where I live, the soil is full of limestone and sand, and the local/old fashioned feed stores carry neither grit nor oyster shell, as limestone has calcium in it. And many people around here are farmers, and have been raising chickens and other animals for generations.

Neither is all that expensive, so I just put them out in a separate feeder. It does take them a long time to go through a bag, even when I had about 50 chickens; now they barely touch it.

I have 4 laying hens and 3 chicks in one flock, so I am feeding all of them a grower feed with oyster shell on the side. I notice that this flock does get into the oyster shell a bit more than the other hens who are on layer.

 

[threehorses]

First, if her crop hasn't emptied, she is impacted. Has she ever had access to grit? If not, she and all the other birds should always have that before ever having access to anything like grass, etc. And the pebbles in the environment aren't necessarily sufficient as they have different hardnesses and dissolvabilities. They can have plenty of pebbles, but that doesn't mean that the pebbles will stay whole long enough in the gizzard to digest foods. Because of the great deal of improvement in food digestion and weight gain and health when propert granite (hard) type grit is given, it's worth the 5 dollars to buy some. You'll get your money back within 3 months in feed utilization and prevention of issues like this.

IN the mean time, she will need the crop emptied out if it doesn't empty today. Feed sitting in there is rotting. That means that whatever dribbles through will be filled with bacteria and fungus. That's likely why she has the diarrhea - her good bacteria are now compromised, she's getting no nutrition, and the bad bacteria are taking over.

She will also need to have nothing to eat but easily dissolved feeds for the next week. To test, if you can put it in a glass of water for 10 minutes and come back to find it collapsed you can feed it. If not don't feed it. These include: pellets made into "crumbles" in the blender, yogurt, boiled (not scrambled) egg yolk (not whites), a little applesauce (baby food type is best and cheapest) to help cleanse the crop, perhaps some crustless bread if you need it to carry something like oil. Cooked oatmeal, too, IF you put the dry uncooked oatmeal in the food processor and break it down into tiny particles before cooking.

The yogurt's living bacteria help replace the ones that the toxic sludge seeping from her crop into her digestive tract are killing. They also help act against yeast/fungi blooms which are almost the rule in backed up crops.

The applesauce gently cleanses while providing pectin to keep the GOOD bacteria happy. Its pH is conducive to good bacteria thriving, bad bacteria and yeast not thriving. It's easily dissolved and chickens like it.

Boiled egg yolks: filled with nutrition yet easily dissolved, unlike whites or scrambled eggs. Will absorb easily so that she doesn't starve.

Oatmeal: soothing to the gut; birds love it, so it helps hide healthy stuff.

Vitamins: polyvisol non-iron fortified baby vitamins; found in the vitamin section (not baby section) of Walmart, CVS, etc. Because they're not in the water, they are more readily available and direct when given by mouth. You KNOW she's getting them. B vitamins in it will encourage her appetite, E will help inflammation and against some bacteria, A will heal her mucus lining of her crop and digestive tract.

Whether or not you empty her crop, you also would be well served by adding organic apple cider vinegar to her water for a week to help cleanse the sludge, prevent too much yeast from forming (which will just make the crop more slow), and provide living bacteria to help the digestive system not be too poisoned.

I'm also with dawn on not giving too much oil. They will only emulsify with whatever is in there and cause issues.

She will need vitamins as she's not getting nourished as the food is stuck and rotting.

So a treatment (provided her crop empties mostly) would be something like this for a week:

Oil only once a day on a tiny piece of bread.
A daily damp mash of crumbles, yogurt, boiled egg yolk, (and apple sauce every other day). Possibly some cooked oatmeal powder
3 drops of polyvisol vitamins in her beak once daily. NOT in the water or food.
OACV in the water (1 teaspoon per gallon of water)
Free choice crumbles.

Re-evaluate after four days, possibly allowing some gentle solid foods to be introduced slowly and grit at that time. NO grass, NO free range as they will only compound your problems.

Incidentally, no - sand is not big enough. Test: get sand, try to grind up grass or corn with it. it doesn't work. Offer a little more grit - free choice. I'd also highly recommend oyster shell because even Layena is only designed for a scientifically average hen, while "real life" hens can sometimes need as much as double the calcium offered in the average laying product. The manufacturers can't put double calcium in because it would poison the hens that are average or need below average. So we offer oyster shells (not egg shells) because they're an easily dissolvable form of calcium that is very easily absorbed and the chickens are drawn to it. The feed takes care of the phosphorus and vitamin D required to dissolve the oyster shell. If you do this, your new layers (like this pullet will be) will not having near the sort of laying issues they would with no oyster shell provided. It's been the standard for decades, even centuries at this point - despite all new scientific options - it's still the one of choice even by professionals. And it's cheap.

Much less expensive than antibiotics for peritonitis caused by soft eggs. I just put mine with the grit, or in a two-hole cat feeder. (I bought mine at the dollar store - they don't tip, they're the right size, etc etc. ) Hope this helps!

 

[threehorses]

Did you try this advice?

 

[augustmomx2]

Quote:
Yes, but to get her to eat anything is impossible and they only way she is getting liquids (and also vitamins) is by dribbling it on her beak. Sometimes she'll lick other times she just lets it drop on her chest

I tried all the food you suggested last night (except for the oatmeal). I do not feel her crop any more. There is a small ball, that is hard, that I'm thinking is her crop (I've only felt healthy ones) and it seems to move?? It seems to be getting a little bit smaller but no too much?? She pooed today, and it does look normal, just runny and smells funny

Well different than than chicken poo usually smells

I did pick up grit and oyster shell yesterday for my other girls and have completely eliminated long grasses & weeds from my garden, from their diet. I really think it has to do with those grasses I gave her

No need to respond I'll deal with this on my own

 

[threehorses]

Quote:
Yes, but to get her to eat anything is impossible and they only way she is getting liquids (and also vitamins) is by dribbling it on her beak. Sometimes she'll lick other times she just lets it drop on her chest

I tried all the food you suggested last night (except for the oatmeal). I do not feel her crop any more. There is a small ball, that is hard, that I'm thinking is her crop (I've only felt healthy ones) and it seems to move?? It seems to be getting a little bit smaller but no too much?? She pooed today, and it does look normal, just runny and smells funny

Well different than than chicken poo usually smells

I did pick up grit and oyster shell yesterday for my other girls and have completely eliminated long grasses & weeds from my garden, from their diet. I really think it has to do with those grasses I gave her

No need to respond I'll deal with this on my own

Dribbling in the beak is a great start. The dropping on the chest - not so great.

GOOD on the crop! That's wonderful news.

Now the smell... was it a cecal dropping? They can smell just disgusting.

And by the way, the grasses and stuff are good for them.... but if they have the grit to grind them up. For now, probably better off for a week without. But the girls all could benefit from them as they're 'living nutrition', green, living, full of good stuff. But that was a sound move.

If you don't read this, then at least hopefully someone else will that it could possibly help. good luck with her!

p.s. By the way - if something does work for you, ask us how to make it work. Different birds require different angles sometimes.