Buttercup has a problem

[Janj76]

i have a 9 week old Buttercup that might have gotten hit with a door to a dog crate I was using as a top on my brooder. We moved the chicks to the coop about 2.5 weeks ago. She looks like all her weight is on one side of her body. She walks okay and flaps both wings so it isn't a broken wing or anything like that. I am posting amseveral pics of her. She still eats and drinks but something just isn't right. I also add a vitamin powder to their water every day so I don't think it's a vitamin deficiency.

 

[SonoranChick]

This might be a silly question but...could it be her crop? Is it all shifted to her right chest area? She looks pretty good, just a bit uneven...

 

[Janj76]

This might be a silly question but...could it be her crop? Is it all shifted to her right chest area? She looks pretty good, just a bit uneven...

What should I look for? And if it is what do I do?? I'm new to chickens. I am a beginner with 12 nine week old chicks.

 

[Farmgirl47]

Have you given thought to Marek's disease? I am sorry to say this and hope I am wrong, but she is acting the way some of my chickens acted when they had it.

Also, I have a chicken right now who is acting like this, but I don't believe she has Marek's disease.
She looked really bad yesterday, couldn't really walk or even stand. I quarantined her (since our Turkey was beating up on her because she was so weak), and I gave her unlimited food (which usually we feed our chickens in the morning, and they don't get any more food all day, they just forage around) and water, which she wouldn't drink so I dipped her beak in it and made her take a few swallows.
I also gave her electrolytes to give her energy, and JumpStart Plus - which is for cattle and goats - but I do believe it helped her. She is doing much better today and can walk a little. She is also more energetic.

 

[Farmgirl47]

Also if not being able to stand is the only thing that appears to be wrong with her, then it could just be that one of her feet is injured.

 

[Janj76]

Also if not being able to stand is the only thing that appears to be wrong with her, then it could just be that one of her feet is injured.

She can stand just fine. And she walks around and flaps her wings. I had them vaccinated at the hatchery so I don't think it's Mareks. She is eating and drinking.

 

[Farmgirl47]

Does she still seem to be her normal self? Nothing else looks wrong with her?

And is she a Golden Campine?

 

[rebrascora]

It may be that she has an impacted crop. I would try gently but firmly massaging her crop. If she is impacted she will probably enjoy it or at least tolerate it. The crop is a pouch where food that has been eaten through the day is stored to be slowly released into the digestive system at night whilst the chicken is sleeping. The outlet can get clogged or silted up with fibrous material or a large object (some chickens will catch and eat a whole mouse) That can plug the system up preventing any food and sometimes water getting through effectively starving and or dehydrating the chicken which then becomes week but is sometimes also ravenously hungry, eating more which makes the crop more impacted. Eventually, if the blockage is not cleared they will die. Isolating and preventing access to straw, hay, grass and shavings and giving only very sloppy watery feed perhaps with a bit of olive oil to help lubricate things and then gentle massage from the bottom of the crop upwards several times a day for 5-10 mins.... chickens make surprisingly good stress balls . If you are not making any progress after a few days it's time to try something else.

I must confess I had the thought about Marek's too just because she appears twisted. The vaccine doesn't always prevent Marek's but lets not get into that right now and just hope it is an impaction that you can clear.
If you fail to shift it with massage after several days, some people have had success with using Dulcolax and the final options would be vomiting by holding the bird almost upside down and massaging the crop to try to get the bird to regurgitate the blockage or crop surgery, which I have done twice and is not as complicated as you might expect. It involves cutting a small incision through the skin and into the crop, teasing out the fibrous material, flushing with saline solution once you have it empty and then sticking it back together with super glue. I appreciate it is not something everyone can manage to do though, but a veterinary should be able to do it if you cannot. There are You Tube video tutorials on it if you are interested.

Good luck fixing her.

Regards

Barbara

 

[Janj76]

Does she still seem to be her normal self? Nothing else looks wrong with her?

And is she a Golden Campine?

Nope nothing else wrong. She is a Buttercup.

 

[Janj76]

It may be that she has an impacted crop. I would try gently but firmly massaging her crop. If she is impacted she will probably enjoy it or at least tolerate it. The crop is a pouch where food that has been eaten through the day is stored to be slowly released into the digestive system at night whilst the chicken is sleeping. The outlet can get clogged or silted up with fibrous material or a large object (some chickens will catch and eat a whole mouse) That can plug the system up preventing any food and sometimes water getting through effectively starving and or dehydrating the chicken which then becomes week but is sometimes also ravenously hungry, eating more which makes the crop more impacted. Eventually, if the blockage is not cleared they will die. Isolating and preventing access to straw, hay, grass and shavings and giving only very sloppy watery feed perhaps with a bit of olive oil to help lubricate things and then gentle massage from the bottom of the crop upwards several times a day for 5-10 mins.... chickens make surprisingly good stress balls . If you are not making any progress after a few days it's time to try something else.

I must confess I had the thought about Marek's too just because she appears twisted. The vaccine doesn't always prevent Marek's but lets not get into that right now and just hope it is an impaction that you can clear.
If you fail to shift it with massage after several days, some people have had success with using Dulcolax and the final options would be vomiting by holding the bird almost upside down and massaging the crop to try to get the bird to regurgitate the blockage or crop surgery, which I have done twice and is not as complicated as you might expect. It involves cutting a small incision through the skin and into the crop, teasing out the fibrous material, flushing with saline solution once you have it empty and then sticking it back together with super glue. I appreciate it is not something everyone can manage to do though, but a veterinary should be able to do it if you cannot. There are You Tube video tutorials on it if you are interested.

Good luck fixing her.

Regards

Barbara

Thanks for the long explanation! I will certainly give this a try in the morning. I hope this is what it is. Sounds like a fixable thing other than a dreaded disease!