Any advice on making a chicken eat?

[Mint413]

She seems fine except 1) she's shaking her head every few minutes or seconds as if to shake something off and 2) she hasn't eaten with any regularity in a week and a half. She's interested in food in theory - she'll peck at kale, for instance, and until she got too weak and tired, she was scratching for bugs - but actual food doesn't seem to appeal to her. I can hold it up in her line of sight and she'll turn toward it, but then not eat.

We're taking her to the vet tomorrow afternoon, if she makes it that long, and I hope they can do something for her (that will be within our price range), but I'm not optimistic. To keep her alive, we've been dosing her every day with a concoction made of water, Nutri-Drench, VetRx, Corid, and another anti-coccidia medicine. (Granted, I've never heard of coccidiosis causing obsessive head-shaking. At this rate she'll die, but she'll be coccidiosis-free.) I would love to try and force food down her throat, too, but I'm worried that that would choke her to death, which wouldn't help.

Does anyone have any ideas?

 

[sourland]

Have you opened her mouth/checked her throat to check for a blockage?

 

[sixlittlechickens]

I have had a chicken act like this before when it had a crop problem. Could it be any of these?
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...w-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/
I feed my chickens scrambled eggs when they're sick. Eggs have lots of protein, are soft and easy to get down, and my chickens seem to like them.
Good luck! I hope your chicken gets better soon!

 

[Mint413]

Thank you both. No, we haven't checked for a blockage - good idea. It could be impacted crop, actually, per the description @sixlittlechickens linked, because she's been drinking a lot. How do you find the crop and know whether it's full?

 

[sixlittlechickens]

The crop is labeled 1 in the diagram below. You should be able to feel it on the right side of its chest. A normal crop will be taut and about the size of a golf ball. If the chicken hasn't eaten, it will be flat and hard to find. An impacted crop/sour crop will be big and stretched out, and may be squishy to the touch. Hope this helps!

 

[Mint413]

Thank you so much, @sixlittlechickens. This is amazing.

Her crop does feel squishy. I don't know if it's enlarged because I couldn't find a crop on the only other chicken who let me capture her for comparison. The patient is drinking (and I haven't smelled anything sour/yeasty, though I may go back and check specifically for that symptom), so I suspect impacted, not sour, crop. But the resource you shared suggests that impacted crops usually feel hard and lumpy. Does that mean her crop isn't impacted? Could it just feel squishy because she's only drinking water?

 

[sixlittlechickens]

Hi Mint413,

Is her crop still full in the morning before she eats/drinks?

She could still be blocked/impacted, and you may have caught it early. I would try to clear the impaction. The article has a good way of clearing the crop by feeding coconut oil and massaging. Feeding yogurt will help avoid sour crop, as well as adding apple cider vinegar to the drinking water and using garlic in their feed. If you suspect sour crop, you will still need to break up the blockage, but also withold food and water for 12 hours and treat with miconazole cream.