AGH! So frustrated - repeat impacted crop after surgery...

[StPaulieGirls]

Argh, friends...I'm mostly looking for sympathy.
We performed a very successful (but stressful) surgery on our year-old barred rock to clear an impacted mess of grass out of her crop. She recovered beautifully and was inside with us for three weeks post-surgery because we had that wicked cold snap here in Minnesota. All her plumbing was back online - perfect poops and beautiful eggs - before we put her back out. We reintegrated her with the flock when the temps warmed up and all was going well until yesterday morning, when I noticed her crop hadn't emptied.
It's all a mess of grass on the inside again! I'm SO FRUSTRATED. We're not going to go through the whole surgery thing again. We'll leave her with the rest of the birds, massage her a few times a day, but I think we'll end up culling her before she starves. She's just not meant to live in a world that has grass in it, I guess. Poor bird. She's been such a brave, good girl.

Anyway...hope everyone else's Sunday is off to a better start.

- Kerri, & Clara the Intractable Hen

 

[Chookchicken]

Poor girl
If you need support I’ll be here. Culling isn’t an easy thing to do I can never bring myself to do it. If you need support there are lots of people (including me) on this site who can help you. Hopefully it never comes to any of that, though it isn’t look very hopeful. Again if you need support we are all here

 

[Eggcessive]

Unfortunately, every crop problem I have ever seen, the chicken has eventually died. There could be other things going on that have slowed down her digestion, such as a reproductive disorder, gizzard problem, worms, etc. I had a hen who ate junk in the yard (tree algae, dried weeds, and other things,) while she had access to healthy chicken feed, clean water, grit all day long. She was very low in the pecking order, and even with multiple feed stations she ate junk. She literally starved herself to death, and her necropsy showed nothing but those things in her crop.