Chicken is eating very little amount of solid food, but it has an empty crop.

[Luckybaby]

I noticed that my 5 month old pullet, has a small crop during evening hours since 3 days ago. One to three days ago, she ate small amount of broiler starter and drinks a moderate amount of water. Today, she still drinks a moderate amount of water, but she doesn't want to eat broiler starter. However, she still ate a small amount of cooked rice, which is probably one of her favorite food. I tried to check her crop before I gave her rice, and I can't feel any solid food, even on the outer part of her proventriculus(the part closest to the crop), so I assume that the broiler starter that she ate yesterday is already digested. She appears to not show any other signs of symptoms of disease, like ruffled feathers, and she appears a little bit lethargic today, but not before today. However, she still scratches the ground and go to the waterer to drink water.

I wormed her about 3 weeks ago, with morning bird worm away product. It contains praziquantel and oxfendazole. She is in a big cage and all of them looks healthy. Majority of my chickens which includes her, are not free range, because of the significant chance of them getting eyeworms, capillary worms, and other types of worms if I free range them. I had chickens with impacted crop, and all of them doesn't want to eat or drink for at least 2 days after their crop is impacted and they are very lethargic since they stay on one place for several minutes. Unlike them, she appears to move somewhere else every several seconds to few minutes. Also, their crop has a lot of hard solid food, like corn, but her crop feels empty. The last time that she ate crack corn was 8 or 9 days ago.

I have a hard time trying to figure out what is wrong with her. Does she have a partially impacted crop? What should I feed her?

* Her poop is watery with a color of chicken urine and transparent white( like the color of water).

 

[Michael Apple]

Don't feed rice. It turns to a glue like substance and is hard to pass. If they are five months of age and you haven't used a coccidiosis preventative recently, you should do a treatment. Corid 9.6% liquid is 10ml (2 tsp) per gallon of water. Make a fresh solution each day for 7 days. If cocci protozoa are irritating or damaging the intestinal tract, enteritis occurs and they lose their appetite. So you have to decrease the protozoa population. At 5 months they are still building immunity.

Most breeds are coming into lay at around 5 months, so a layer ration should start being given. Avoid giving any treats besides their layer feed during this treatment. After the Corid treatment, supplement water with vitamin-mineral-electrolyte dispersible powder along with Probios dispersible powder. Most all the products I mentioned can be found at your local feed store. If you have any questions, keep us updated on this thread.

 

[Luckybaby]

Don't feed rice. It turns to a glue like substance and is hard to pass. If they are five months of age and you haven't used a coccidiosis preventative recently, you should do a treatment. Corid 9.6% liquid is 10ml (2 tsp) per gallon of water. Make a fresh solution each day for 7 days. If cocci protozoa are irritating or damaging the intestinal tract, enteritis occurs and they lose their appetite. So you have to decrease the protozoa population. At 5 months they are still building immunity.

Most breeds are coming into lay at around 5 months, so a layer ration should start being given. Avoid giving any treats besides their layer feed during this treatment. After the Corid treatment, supplement water with vitamin-mineral-electrolyte dispersible powder along with Probios dispersible powder. Most all the products I mentioned can be found at your local feed store. If you have any questions, keep us updated on this thread.

I thought they are immune to coccidiosis already. They are eating medicated broiler starter since I bought them on June 1 this year. They are exposed to coccidiosis starting the last week of June. In fact, one of them has died, because of either coccidiosis and/or necrotic enteritis 15 days after exposure. I never know on that time, that amprolium doesn't kill coccidia parasites directly like baycox, but it starves them, and the chicken can be overwhelmed even if it ate the recommended amount of broiler starter with amprolium. I quarantined them after one of them died, and I saw blood on the poop on the one that is sick right now. I think the last time I saw it was on July this year. I also have chickens in the same cage as her, since they are 2 months old, but they didn't develop any symptoms the same as her.

Some of my young chickens have a moderate to severe form of fowl pox right now, but so far, they don't show any signs of fowl pox, probably, because they are immune to it, since they have mild to moderate form of fowl pox on July to August this year. My chickens who are living in the same cage as her was born 2 months ago, and they have a mild form of dry fowl pox, since they are close to the quarantined chicks.

* Actually, when I try to check her throat using a stem of mango( I am lazy to get a q-tip and the stem is not pointy and it is not hard), I saw a little trace of blood on her mouth, after she resisted( I didn't see it before she resisted). I used a q-tip about 6 hours after I did it for the first time, but I didn't see any blood on her mouth. Also, I think that she doesn't show any other signs of disease.

* The last time that I feed them egg shell( it is intended for the laying chickens) was on Wednesday, which is 3 days ago. Most of it was eaten by the laying chickens, but some of feathered leg bantam( all of the ones I bought on June are feather foot bantam and she is a white cochin), ate some of it. I am sure, that I tried to crack the egg shell at about the same size as whole corn, or smaller, although a few might be 1.5x to 2x bigger than the average size of whole corn. In fact, my parents doesn't even crack the egg shell, and sometimes, it is bigger than the size of the shell that I give it to them, even though they crack it( they don't want to spend time to crack it into smaller pieces like I do). I spoke to my mom today, and she said that the last time she gave them that was this week, and I assume, that probably it happened before Wednesday this week. Could she have an impacted crop, because of an eggshell, 1.5xto 2x bigger than the average size of whole corn?

* There was light to heavy rainfall from saturday to sunday last week due to Hurricane Ana, and their cage was flooded with water, but most of the water didn't come outside of their cage. They are also wet for at least 24 hours, since I don't have enough coop to put them all in, where they will live peacefully with each other. I think Hurricane Ana brought about 7 inches of rainfall in here. On tuesday this week, there was another moderate rainfall for about an hour, and they were wet again, and their cage was slightly flooded.

 

[Luckybaby]

I tried to use the yellow green colored mango stem again, to check her throat, and the are below her tongue bleed after she resisted. I never thought, chickens mouth is that delicate.

Today, she appears to only like to eat dirt size broiler starter, and wet rice. Also, she drinks very little amount of water and her crop appears empty.

I wormed her 3-4 weeks ago, but I think I gave her 3-4 times the recommended dose. Her crop gradually becomes smaller every evening since I wormed her, but she still eats at least to the recommended amount per day until sometime this week. I wormed the other one at the same day, but only 2-3 times the recommended dose, but he is still eats a lot. The active ingredients of the wormer are praziquantel and oxfendazole.

 

[Toddrick]

Do I understand this correctly? You have one dead bird, suspected cause Coccidia, and you are not currently treating all birds from this group with Corid? Just using normal medicated feed? I'm confused by your post, because you said you learned that medicated feed is not good enough to treat established Coccidia, yet you never stated treating it. Or did you use the Baycox? What I'm hearing is that you have a bad case of Coccidiosis and are treating for worms (which is good), but Coccidia is not a worm, and should be treated as an advanced case.

I don't know anything about Baycox, but did you read Kathy's thread on Corid dosing?
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/818879/updated-corid-and-amprol-amprolium-dosing

 

[Luckybaby]

Do I understand this correctly? You have one dead bird, suspected cause Coccidia, and you are not currently treating all birds from this group with Corid? Just using normal medicated feed? I'm confused by your post, because you said you learned that medicated feed is not good enough to treat established Coccidia, yet you never stated treating it. Or did you use the Baycox? What I'm hearing is that you have a bad case of Coccidiosis and are treating for worms (which is good), but Coccidia is not a worm, and should be treated as an advanced case.

I don't know anything about Baycox, but did you read Kathy's thread on Corid dosing?
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/818879/updated-corid-and-amprol-amprolium-dosing

The medicated feed contains the active ingredient amprolium which is the same active ingredient that corid have, to treat coccidiosis, but it is not as good as Baycox( which is really expensive). I think the medicated starter feed is good enough, if she is eating normally, but the corid should be used, if she is not eating normally. However, I quarantined them for about 1 3/4 months after her peer died on the second week of July, and I think that she is exposed to it before she died since I saw blood on her poo up to 1st week or last week of August and July respectively, so she should develop an immunity to coccidiosis. Five, of my chickens are exposed to coccidiosis about 6 weeks ago, and I quarantined them about 14 days starting 4 days after exposure, and all of them looks healthy today, even though they(the anorexic chicken, 5 chickens(all of them are more than 3 months younger than my anorexic chicken)), are living in the same cage, and eating the same medicated broiler starter feed.

She doesn't even show signs of cocci infestation, like ruffled feathers, blood on the poop, etc. except that she is anorexic.

I used to put a medication for cocci which has amprolium and ethopabate on their water, but the last time I put that was on the first week of August. However, I don't want to buy that anymore since I think the medicated starter feed is good enough, for as long as I can control the amount of cocci that they ingest(that's why I quarantinedthe younger chickens for about 14 days though I think it should be 21 to 28 days after exposing them for a few days to a cocci infested area). Note: Her peer was initially exposed to it for 15 consecutive days before she died.

 

[Luckybaby]

I doubt that she had an impacted crop, since her crop was empty this morning. About 13 hours before I checked it this morning, I can feel some rice in her crop. Also, I saw her normal looking poop( solid and with white urine on top), yesterday.

She doesn't want to eat the food the same kind of food that I gave her yesterday, which was medicated broiler starter with cooked rice, and crushed medicated broiler starter. Strangely, she eats a little amount of the kind of food that has not been giving to her since several days ago.

I am wondering if her good bacteria is overwhelmed by bad bacteria. They usually drink 3 quarts of water, but on the day during the light to heavy rainfull, they barely drunk 1 quart of water. I think, they drunk at least 1 quart of water from the dirty muddy water on their cage. However, only her is acting sick right now, and the rest all look healthy.

I forced feed her alone for more than 60 minutes today. Do you guys know any way to reduce the time, since I don't want to spend that much time, while try to feed her medicated broiler starter and cooked rice.

 

[Luckybaby]

She died, and I cried for several seconds today because of it.

I found her panting today, even though she is in a shade and the other chickens on the other coop are not painting. She couldn't stand without support and leans towards her right side while panting. However, yesterday, she can still walk on her own and drink water by herself. I tried to give her probiotics mixed with water at about 0.5ml to 0.75ml each time I put it on her mouth since she doesn't want to drink water on her own. I saw her swallowing it, but after I am done, I can hear like bubble noises inside her mouth, then her comb gradually becomes purple before she died 5-8 minutes after that. I only gave 6-7ml of water with probiotics, and I let her try to swallow it for at least 5 seconds before I do it again. Could it be true, that she have a hard time swallowing water on that time? Even my sick chickens before, can easily swallow that much of water. Her crop is definitely lacking in water after I did it, and she didn't make any signs like sneezing, which can indicate that slight amount of water went on or near her trachea. Did the water went inside her trachea? Is it possible that bubbles blocked the air passage towards her trachea? I found it hard to imagine, that bubbles can actually suffocate her on that time.

***** My other adult chicken died today. I free ranged her, since she stayed outside of the property about more than 14 days ago for 2-3 days. I did that, so that she can't spread worm eggs, just in case she have some worms from eating bugs outside the property. Last night, she is on the top of the fence that seperates the border of my parent's property and my neighbor's property, but she is facing my neighbor's property. I didn't bring her down, since I thought she will come back down to my parent's property at early morning hours. Sadly today, I saw her dead in the middle of the road(the road is rarely used since it is private property and they blocked it, so that other cars can't enter the property), directly across my neighbor's property. Her back has blood on it. My neighbor has a dog, but I only see it outside of his cage during afternoon hours, like 3pm or later. I doubt that the other female chicken outside of my parent's property killed her, since she didn't have any wound marks when they are in the same place more than 14 days ago. Did the dog kill her, or my neighbor kill her? I am also wondering, if my neighbor might have poisoned my chicken that is anorexic since 4-5 days ago.