NewFlockOnTheBlock
Songster
I have an older hen, named ChronoHen (weird name, long story, no, not related to the coronavirus) whose crop seems to have essentially stopped working. At the end of March I noticed that she had slowed down and was spending a lot of time just standing with her eyes closed. I picked her up and noticed that she was very skinny. Brought her inside overnight and realized that her crop was not completely emptying in the morning. Her poop was also way off, all yellow and green and runny.
I took ChronoHen to the vet, who opened up her crop and apparently found lots of dirt and foul-smelling, undigested grains inside. ChronoHen got cleaned out and sewn back up. Recovery was slow, but she finally appears to be out of the woods, at least as far as the post-surgery period.
However: her crop is still not working. I haven't been feeding her whole grains (she only gets to hang out with the flock when they're all free-ranging without access to the feeders), but if she does occasionally eat a few grains of wheat, barley, or oats, they pass through undigested. I do offer grit, and I know she swallows a few pieces of it once in a while. But, it doesn't seem to help.
It seems like ChronoHen's digestion is off in general: her poop basically looks like whatever she ate. For the past two days, she's been really into roasted acorn squash, and that's what her poop looks like. Prior to that she devoured tons of shredded cabbage, and her poop was all green and consisted of tiny little pieces of mostly undigested cabbage. She's regained a little weight, but is still very skinny and takes lots of rest breaks from eating and foraging. So it looks like she is absorbing little nutrition from the food that she eats. Up until a couple days ago, I offered lots of high protein treats like dried grubs, ground beef, and hard boiled eggs, and, while she enjoys them, I noticed that her poop was getting super-watery with lots of white urates, which I know can be a sign of too much protein. I didn't want to tax her liver too much, so I've cut back on the protein. Now her poop just looks like squash and cabbage
Has anyone ever had a chicken where their digestion appears to sort of shut down or get off track like this? Is this usually a sign of an underlying condition? Or, is this simply something that happens with age? (I don't know how old she is exactly but when we got her last summer, she laid two or three shell-less eggs, so I'm guessing she was no older than 5 or so. She hasn't laid since then.) What sort of care would you advise? We are not considering euthanasia because she clearly still enjoys tasty food, spending time outside, and human attention, so please do not suggest this as an option at this stage.
Thank you for reading through the long post! Here's a pic of the culprit
I took ChronoHen to the vet, who opened up her crop and apparently found lots of dirt and foul-smelling, undigested grains inside. ChronoHen got cleaned out and sewn back up. Recovery was slow, but she finally appears to be out of the woods, at least as far as the post-surgery period.
However: her crop is still not working. I haven't been feeding her whole grains (she only gets to hang out with the flock when they're all free-ranging without access to the feeders), but if she does occasionally eat a few grains of wheat, barley, or oats, they pass through undigested. I do offer grit, and I know she swallows a few pieces of it once in a while. But, it doesn't seem to help.
It seems like ChronoHen's digestion is off in general: her poop basically looks like whatever she ate. For the past two days, she's been really into roasted acorn squash, and that's what her poop looks like. Prior to that she devoured tons of shredded cabbage, and her poop was all green and consisted of tiny little pieces of mostly undigested cabbage. She's regained a little weight, but is still very skinny and takes lots of rest breaks from eating and foraging. So it looks like she is absorbing little nutrition from the food that she eats. Up until a couple days ago, I offered lots of high protein treats like dried grubs, ground beef, and hard boiled eggs, and, while she enjoys them, I noticed that her poop was getting super-watery with lots of white urates, which I know can be a sign of too much protein. I didn't want to tax her liver too much, so I've cut back on the protein. Now her poop just looks like squash and cabbage
Has anyone ever had a chicken where their digestion appears to sort of shut down or get off track like this? Is this usually a sign of an underlying condition? Or, is this simply something that happens with age? (I don't know how old she is exactly but when we got her last summer, she laid two or three shell-less eggs, so I'm guessing she was no older than 5 or so. She hasn't laid since then.) What sort of care would you advise? We are not considering euthanasia because she clearly still enjoys tasty food, spending time outside, and human attention, so please do not suggest this as an option at this stage.
Thank you for reading through the long post! Here's a pic of the culprit
