Can a swollen crop area indicate eggbound?

[jossanne]

I have a 21 week old leghorn pullet who started laying at 16wk 3days. She laid an egg every day for 15 days, and hasn't laid again. Today is the 20th day with no egg. I had noticed that her crop area is quite large and sticking out, but I just figured that she was eating a lot.

Today I picked her up and her chest/crop area is very large and hard. It doesn't feel like a normal crop.

So is it possible for an eggbound pullet to be stowing her eggs in her chest, or would this more likely be an infected crop? Would an infected crop keep her from laying?

Thanks in advance!

 

[rooster-red]

Its not possible for eggs to back up into the crop.

Try giving her a little bread soaked in olive oil and restrict her feed to see if the crop goes down.

 

[silkiechicken]

If her crop does not go down after 24 hours of only water, she probably has an impacted crop. This can prevent food from going though and digesting corectly, which can short her on nutrients thus cause her to stop laying.

 

[jossanne]

It was impacted crop. We put her in a cage with only water, and it was still HUGE and hard this afternoon. I remember my kids sitting in the hen house giving the birds big ol' weeds, and that was a few weeks ago. Since she hasn't laid an egg in 3 weeks now, I knew she'd been sick for a while, and she was really skinny. I decided to go ahead and operate.

DH and I worked on her this afternoon, and she laid there calmly during the procedure. She even started pecking at the chicken feed that came out of her crop with the weeds while we had her on the table! It was the most bizarre thing. We pulled out about 1/4 cup of weed stems and leaves, and lots of feed came out too. I hope I got her cleaned out enough. I put two stitches in her skin, but left the dime-sized incision in her crop open. Now if I could just get the smell of wet chicken out of my house

She's up and drinking water this evening, working on getting her feathers clean. She's so young, and was promising to be a good layer, with 15 eggs in 15 days starting at 16weeks old. She's sweet and friendly, and my DD and I are very attached to her. I couldn't bear the thought of her suffering anymore, but I also couldn't bear the thought of euthanizing her. This seemed like the only option to save her.

There are no vets within 200 miles that will work on chickens, and even if there were there is no money for vet bills. My DH was diagnosed with thyroid cancer last week, and has had two surgeries in the last two weeks. Our doctor bills are going to be outrageous, and DH is recuperating, so traveling to take a chicken to the doctor was completely out of the question. I hope I've done enough to save her, because we really don't want to lose her.

 

[Jenski]

Whoa! Very brave of you to take on the operation. There are several threads around here from folks who also did this, and there should be some good follow up info in those threads as well.

Hopefully the kids won't be in the coop feeding weeds any more!

Also very much hoping for the best with your DH ~ sending prayers and healing thoughts your way.


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