Chicken had broken soft-shelled egg inside her; likely impacted crop. Need guidance before it's too late.

[japeters1]

Hi BYC community; my little Virgilia is almost 2 years old - she's a golden commet. yesterday she sat in the nesting box all day, fluffed up like a broody hen. but then i noticed egg white in her poop. and then later she passed what looked like a mangled soft shelled/malformed egg along with a lot of yolk and white.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/61080138705201915/

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/61080138705201912/

i tried to soak her in a bath (she didn't fit very well in the bucket, and refused to sit so as to fully submerge her vent), and used a syringe to try to flush her vent area (but again, was afraid of injecting water with too much force into her...so not sure it really got up in there enough. She stood pretty motionless in one place for as long as i was awake last night (inside a kennel in the living room), but did eat a little scrambled egg at one point.

this morning when i checked on her, there was some more normalish poop (brown and white). but her crop was firm and full still, even though i didn't really see her eat anything but a few bites of egg all day yesterday. So now i'm wondering if her crop has been impacted for a while, and malnutrition maybe caused the malformed egg. So many problems now to worry about! Impacted crop, preventing peritonitis, another malformed egg rupturing inside her...i hardly know where to begin.

I wanted to try to get some oil and water in her to start massaging the crop to address that issue...but she won't take the oil from the dropper. Not sure how to get her beak open without hurting her...

Can someone offer guidance here? there is no avian veterinarian in my area, so i'm on my own.

 

[Eggcessive]

Welcome to BYC. As you may know she is one of many breeds who produce a lot of eggs, and can suffer from reproductive diseases and may have a shortened life. Crop disorders can occur because of crop impaction, reproductive disorders, worms, gizzard impaction, ascites (water belly,) and other issues that can affect the pressure inside the belly.

I would offer her a human calcium tablet with vitamin D for the next 3 days, to see if that increases her ability to pass eggs and form egg shells. Consider starting an antibiotic such as Aqua Mox or amoxicillin, available online, or from your vet, to treat any infection in her reproductive tract from the broken egg.

Coconut oil, chilled and cut into small pieces can be offered 1 or 2 tsp a day, for her to peck. Try to get her drinking water, and then massage her crop several times a day to break up the impacted crop. Do you have granite poultry grit available every day that she can take? What type of feed do you provide? Is her crop full and hard? Be sure to check it first thing each morning to see if it is emptying normally. An impacted crop can lead to sour crop, and that can be a bacterial or fungal infection. Worming ner with Valbazen or SafeGuard Liquid Goat Wormer may help as well in case of worms. Here is an article to read:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...w-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/

 

[japeters1]

so glad you mentioned coconut oil...maybe she'll peck at that in a solid state. She's been on a layer feed (generally something like this https://milefour.com/products/chicken-layer-feed ) forever. I haven't been super vigiliant about having grit available every day to them, only when i notice they've run out do i then fill up a trough in the coop. but most of the year, they get lots of garden time during the day (about 1000 sqft if space to roam, for 5 chickens) and free range time whenever i have a chance to let them out into the rest of the yard (about .75 acres). so i figure they pick up a lot of their own grit much of the year. but i gave them a load of grit right before i went away for 5 days last week, as well as oystershell...so i can't imagine they needed any more yet.

have you had impacted crop experience? is it likely that it can be massaged loose? I did leave them with a tray of wheatgrass before i left...so now i'm worried the grass was too long and maybe that is bound up in her

UPDATE: she loved the coconut oil! she pecked at it and got a bunch down. Thank you so much. i massaged her crop 15 minutes later, and i feel like it's gotten smaller. so way more encouraged now than i was this morning. if this keeps up, then i just need to worry about protecting her from infection.

Question- i have some concern about flushing her vent (especially since the syringe i'm useing -- designed for injecting juices underneath the skin of a turkey before cooking-- shoots out a pretty narrow jet of water which could travel quite a bit up channel in a little chicken); knowing that she may not be forming egg shells properly, is there a better time of the day when i should attempt to clean her out again, so as not to risk flooding things while an egg is forming (and possibly causing another sort of miscarriage)? also, just worried about handling here for the procedure, if there's an egg inside that might get broken again from just the awkwardness of trying to keep her still while flushing.

 

[AmyJane725]

I don't know what the experts here recommend, but I know my vet said that once an egg has broken inside it's important for the hen to get antibiotics.

And it's hard for me to talk about this cause I feel like such an idiot and a failure, but I had a little hen with a stuck egg that wouldn't come out. I tried to get it out and it ended up breaking. I dug all the pieces out and flushed her out like you did. She was acting fine so I put her back outside with the rest of the flock, but in a week she was acting sick. I took her to the vet and she let me know about the need for antibiotics right away if an egg breaks, and that my poor little hen wasn't gonna make it. I had to have her put to sleep. I'm sorry Limpy. I let you down.

 

[japeters1]

Welcome to BYC. As you may know she is one of many breeds who produce a lot of eggs, and can suffer from reproductive diseases and may have a shortened life. Crop disorders can occur because of crop impaction, reproductive disorders, worms, gizzard impaction, ascites (water belly,) and other issues that can affect the pressure inside the belly.

I would offer her a human calcium tablet with vitamin D for the next 3 days, to see if that increases her ability to pass eggs and form egg shells. Consider starting an antibiotic such as Aqua Mox or amoxicillin, available online, or from your vet, to treat any infection in her reproductive tract from the broken egg.

Coconut oil, chilled and cut into small pieces can be offered 1 or 2 tsp a day, for her to peck. Try to get her drinking water, and then massage her crop several times a day to break up the impacted crop. Do you have granite poultry grit available every day that she can take? What type of feed do you provide? Is her crop full and hard? Be sure to check it first thing each morning to see if it is emptying normally. An impacted crop can lead to sour crop, and that can be a bacterial or fungal infection. Worming ner with Valbazen or SafeGuard Liquid Goat Wormer may help as well in case of worms. Here is an article to read:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...w-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/

so glad you mentioned coconut oil...maybe she'll peck at that in a solid state. She's been on a layer feed (generally something like this https://milefour.com/products/chicken-layer-feed ) forever. I haven't been super vigiliant about having grit available every day to them, only when i notice they've run out do i then fill up a trough in the coop. but most of the year, they get lots of garden time during the day (about 1000 sqft if space to roam, for 5 chickens) and free range time whenever i have a chance to let them out into the rest of the yard (about .75 acres). so i figure they pick up a lot of their own grit much of the year. but i gave them a load of grit right before i went away for 5 days last week, as well as oystershell...so i can't imagine they needed any more yet.

have you had impacted crop experience? is it likely that it can be massaged loose? I did leave them with a tray of wheatgrass before i left...so now i'm worried the grass was too long and maybe that is bound up in her

 

[Eggcessive]

I would not flush her vent. The anatomy of the cloaca where the large intestines meet the oviduct opening, would likely cause fecal bacteria to be flushed up into the oviduct. It is good that she pecked the coconut oil. My chickens with crop disorders usually would. I have had better success with treating a doughy crop with massage and coconut oil. Once they have a long standing impacted crop that turns to sour crop, I have never had one recover. A vet can empty an impacted crop with crop surgery. Let’s hope that her crop problem will clear up with treatment and having her egg shells get hard. If the calcium and D do not help, she may have a problem with her oviduct, such as infection or salpingitis. When I lose a hen I always try to do a necropsy myself, and look at the abdominal organs, gizzard, intestines and crop.

 

[Eggcessive]

so i feel like whenever i first start to massage her crop, it feels full and firm. but after a little massaging, it seems like it flattens out. would an empty crop sometimes pooch out and feel hard until pressed, or does that not make sense? i gave her some egg to see if she'd eat it...an she refused. maybe she just didn't like the oregano and thyme seasoning. wondering if i should try to keep getting her to eat now, in order to see if she's processing food.

How is she doing? A doughy crop can act like you describe. I would get her drinking a lot of water, and massage the crop several times a day. If the crop turns puffy, then it can be dangerous to massage it, since liquid can come back up into the airway. You can give a tsp daily of oil, such as chilled coconut oil, cut into little pieces.

 

[stargirl]

How is she doing today?

I nursed my old hen Mathilda through about 6 egg binding incidents over the years, especially as she got older. Heat, baths, calcium and metacam always got her through without the need for antibiotics - but if you suspect infection by all means add them too.

It’s always stressful but it doesn’t have to be a death sentence!

 

[japeters1]

so i feel like whenever i first start to massage her crop, it feels full and firm. but after a little massaging, it seems like it flattens out. would an empty crop sometimes pooch out and feel hard until pressed, or does that not make sense? i gave her some egg to see if she'd eat it...an she refused. maybe she just didn't like the oregano and thyme seasoning. wondering if i should try to keep getting her to eat now, in order to see if she's processing food.

 

[FriendlyWyandotte]

so i feel like whenever i first start to massage her crop, it feels full and firm. but after a little massaging, it seems like it flattens out. would an empty crop sometimes pooch out and feel hard until pressed, or does that not make sense? i gave her some egg to see if she'd eat it...an she refused. maybe she just didn't like the oregano and thyme seasoning. wondering if i should try to keep getting her to eat now, in order to see if she's processing food.

@Eggcessive