Bad case of Sour Crop - Help!

[sixlittlechickens]

I have an 18 week old Silkie bantam pullet named Peanut, she has been battling crop issues since she was a chick. Now she has a bad case of sour crop that I spotted last week and is getting skinnier by the day. Her crop is swollen to the size of a tennis ball. She is pooping/spitting up yellow gunk occasionally. She is acting okay. Her poops are small and watery. She will eat almost anything, including pine shavings and long grass, and I think that is what caused the impaction that led to the sour crop.

I withheld food and water for 12 hours, then gave her water only for another 16 hours. Now she is eating yogurt, feed soaked with warm water and olive oil, and drinking garlic water, all in small amounts. She is taking 2-3 cc of miconazole 2% cream twice a day. I vomited her two days ago, because we were really getting desperate, and all that came out was white goop.

Going to a vet isn't really an option for us. She has a separate cage in the run lined with cardboard, and I cover it with towels overnight. Am I treating her correctly? Is there anything else I can do to help Peanut? Thanks.

 

[azygous]

I had this same issue with a ten-week old pullet some weeks ago. She has a taste for long stemmed grass, and she had developed an impacted gizzard in addition to the sour crop.

What I did was to give her the miconazole treatment for the yeast, and oil for the impaction. Then I gave her a stool softener capsule with more oil to break up the impacted mass.

Finally, I gave her a molasses flush, a fourth of a cup of warm water with a teaspoon of molasses. I did it by syringe directly into her crop so she got every bit of the molasses mix.

That all got her system moving again, but she was still passing very hard, dry grass stems lightly coated with poop. So for the next several days, I sprinkled unsweetened psyllium fiber https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RYBVLH8/?tag=backy-20 over some grated carrot to further add moisture to her poops. For any chicken that eats a lot of grassy material, occasional psyllium in their food can help head off further impaction issues. But use the kind that is not artificially sweetened as the sweetener can be toxic,

 

[sixlittlechickens]

Thank you so much! How long did you continue the miconazole for, and how long did you wait between the stool softener and molasses flush?

 

[azygous]

I actually did the stool softener and molasses flush at the same time. The miconazole must be carried out for a full seven days to be effective.

 

[sixlittlechickens]

Thanks!

 

[LaFleche]

Please, trim her head fluff to ensure unobstructed vision.

In addition to the advice @azygous gave you, I would deworm her. Sometimes the reason for the obstruction is further down the digestive system and caused by worms.

 

[sixlittlechickens]

Thanks for your help! She was very lethargic when I went to check on her this morning. I gave her the stool softener, but she wouldn’t take the molasses. It’s a very cold day, so we took her inside and warmed her up. She was a lot more lively after that. She’s currently napping in a box with some towels. I trimmed her head fluff too.

 

[azygous]

This is how I put molasses water into a chicken. It's rare they will drink it on their own unless they're very thirsty.

Please notice the two openings in the throat. The one in the center is the airway. You want to slip the syringe into the one to the right of her tongue, her right, not yours.

 

[sixlittlechickens]

Thanks so much!

 

[sixlittlechickens]

So we gave her stool softener and did molasses flush. She started pooping nasty green stuff and seemed much better. Two days later, it got worse again and she was throwing up every where. Finally, we just vomited her last night. A huge chunk of greens about 6 inches long came up. Don't know where she got it.
She's pooping again, but she's super skinny and her crop is totally stretched out. She won't stand with a crop support, although she can without one, and she's having trouble emptying it. She threw up a few more drops of liquid earlier with the crop support. She's off miconazole (we ran out) and she's eating softened medicated starter-grower with olive oil, yogurt, scrambled eggs, and a bit of grated carrot. She drinks water with garlic and ACV. She's pooping okay, but not back to normal yet.
What do we do to rehab her crop? Why does it sometimes feel like her crop has two lobes? What should we feed her to help her gain weight? This chicken is very special to my family. Thanks!