Chicken with impacted crop… again

[Rose the Legbar]

I have a hen who has an impacted crop. I thought she was just feeling awful because she is molting but I just realized that her crop hasn’t gone down in a week. But the weird thing is that she got the same sort of pre crop impaction “signs” and the crop impaction is happening at the same time as last year. Her shoulder feathers were all ragged and they felt extremely wrong, and that happened right before my hen got a crop impaction last year. Her shoulder feathers looked ragged and I thought it was just her going into molting. Which she is molting now but her crop is huge and she is super skinny. I thought she was just loosing a lot of weight due to molting and her comb was shrinking a lot due to molting.

I feel horrible that I didn’t catch it sooner, I’ve held her and checked on her every day but I didn’t realize this. I don’t know if this is going to be a reoccurring issue as I know she has other health issues (her eggs are always awful and her poop hasn’t been the same since the last impacted crop).

I attached a photo from Saturday of my girl looking awful from what I thought was just from her molting.

 

[Debbie292d]

I'm so sorry to hear your hen having issues. There are a couple of great articles on BYC about crop disorders. Here's one:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...ntion-and-treatments-of-crop-disorders.67194/

And another:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...w-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/

Good luck! I hope she gets better!

 

[Rose the Legbar]

A general deficiency can cause symptoms of feathers being not normal and crop problems. Is her diet ok? Sorry to ask the obvious.

Have you tried giving her tiny amounts of oil mixed with warm water and trying to massage it when this happens? Just this weekend my hen had crop issues and I was lucky enough that some massaging three times in the day helped it resolve.

It's not your fault. You seem very vigilant. It happens, and it's ok.

Eggs, poop, crop and feathers could be a sign of deficiency or exposure to a toxin. Some kind of disease process. What is happening with her poop? What does it look like?

I’m at school and when I get home I am going to bring her inside and work with her.
I have switched feed multiple times, she was given Scratch and Peck chick starter as a chick and have switched between Scratch and Peck Layer and Puriena Layer for a bit. I’ve settled on a 20% protein all flock as I heard the higher protein is very good. She has access to calcium and grit 24/7. I give them fruits and veggies often. I also throw a handful or so of fly larvae once a week.
Her poop was solid and nice looking but after the first impacted crop a year ago, now it is very wet and doesn’t hold in one shape. It looks like when you wet chick crumbles into a weird liquid mush that doesn’t quite flow like water but it is still liquidy. I don’t think I have a photo of it when it was like that.
Her eggs were always small and if you didn’t crack it right away, the more mottled it grew. She only laid one egg every 1 to 2 weeks. I had one egg from her that after a week and a half, the yolk was black and it smelled awful. I have a photo of the egg and a video of me cracking it open, I can attach it if needed

I’m unsure if the line she is from is inbred but it may be. Her last crop issue took over 3 weeks to fully resolve and after a long time of feeding her oil and baby food and massaging her crop.


I forgot to add: She is an Opal Legbar from a breeder. Her sister gave me beautiful blue eggs every other day when she was laying. Her sister’s eggs were always normal.

 

[moglet]

I’m at school and when I get home I am going to bring her inside and work with her.
I have switched feed multiple times, she was given Scratch and Peck chick starter as a chick and have switched between Scratch and Peck Layer and Puriena Layer for a bit. I’ve settled on a 20% protein all flock as I heard the higher protein is very good. She has access to calcium and grit 24/7. I give them fruits and veggies often. I also throw a handful or so of fly larvae once a week.
Her poop was solid and nice looking but after the first impacted crop a year ago, now it is very wet and doesn’t hold in one shape. It looks like when you wet chick crumbles into a weird liquid mush that doesn’t quite flow like water but it is still liquidy. I don’t think I have a photo of it when it was like that.
Her eggs were always small and if you didn’t crack it right away, the more mottled it grew. She only laid one egg every 1 to 2 weeks. I had one egg from her that after a week and a half, the yolk was black and it smelled awful. I have a photo of the egg and a video of me cracking it open, I can attach it if needed

I’m unsure if the line she is from is inbred but it may be. Her last crop issue took over 3 weeks to fully resolve and after a long time of feeding her oil and baby food and massaging her crop.


I forgot to add: She is an Opal Legbar from a breeder. Her sister gave me beautiful blue eggs every other day when she was laying. Her sister’s eggs were always normal.

Hi I have the same problem here, I'm in UK I've had crop surgery done 8 times!! 2 hens, one died over night at vets after operation, my 8 and a half year old aracauna unbelievably is back to normal! but I now have a 2 and a half year old brahma who had crop surgery 11 days ago is still passing basically water with greeny slushy poo in it and undigested wheat grains, giving her growers pellets with a few grains. had her on avipro probiotics/prebiotics for 4 days, made no difference, past 2 days after 48 hours have given her pantacox in water. this again always happens at this time of year, moulting, not interested in normal food but just wants to eat grass. vet is bewildered, and so am I. not showing any other signs of illness, other than losing weight, no fungal symptoms, will be taking her back to vet in next few days if no better.

 

[Rose the Legbar]

Hi I have the same problem here, I'm in UK I've had crop surgery done 8 times!! 2 hens, one died over night at vets after operation, my 8 and a half year old aracauna unbelievably is back to normal! but I now have a 2 and a half year old brahma who had crop surgery 11 days ago is still passing basically water with greeny slushy poo in it and undigested wheat grains, giving her growers pellets with a few grains. had her on avipro probiotics/prebiotics for 4 days, made no difference, past 2 days after 48 hours have given her pantacox in water. this again always happens at this time of year, moulting, not interested in normal food but just wants to eat grass. vet is bewildered, and so am I. not showing any other signs of illness, other than losing weight, no fungal symptoms, will be taking her back to vet in next few days if no better.

I hope your girl gets better! Have you been massaging and feeding her mineral oil/coconut oil? Honestly the oil really helps with making things slide and be able to move.

It’s been a long few weeks of massaging and force feeding her mineral oil. She is getting a lot of food through her system and her poop looks fine, her crop still has a lump in it. She is still extremely skinny but I believe her weight is going up! My girl is still as spunky as ever.

 

[moglet]

I hope your girl gets better! Have you been massaging and feeding her mineral oil/coconut oil? Honestly the oil really helps with making things slide and be able to move.

It’s been a long few weeks of massaging and force feeding her mineral oil. She is getting a lot of food through her system and her poop looks fine, her crop still has a lump in it. She is still extremely skinny but I believe her weight is going up! My girl is still as spunky as ever.

Hi Rose, thank you for replying, and your information, I haven't used coconut oil, but when I 1st noticed she had impacted crop I did try massage and olive oil but this didn't make any difference which is why I took her to the vet for immediate surgery, the vet said I was right to bring her in straight away, they operated the same day and said she had quite a bit of grass in her crop, which wasn't a surprise, we always keep the grass short where she free ranges with the rest of the flock but there are hedges all the way round where we can't get to any longer pieces of grass, having said that the vet said all the grass in her crop was short strands which had compacted in her crop. Now she's had the op her crop is going down overnight so hopefully this will continue, but the problem is she is still doing really watery poo, I'm keeping her on just growers pellets and a few blueberries and yesterday I gave her a small amount of tinned sweetcorn, she's still eating very well and drinking, which is good and now she's had 2 days on cocci treatment (pantacox) I'm giving her avipro again in the hope that after a little longer on probiotics her poo will improve, otherwise as I said I'm taking her back to the vets. Thank you again for your advice I will get some coconut oil, yes my girl is still spunky too and is wanting to get back out in the field, but she's staying in the stable until she gets better! I must say that next year when she starts moulting and the aracauna they are going to be brought in to the stable until they have regrown their feathers. Thanks again.