Ruth: not sure whether you will check back, but I will post the current status of this situation. The weekend came and our vet was not available, the local stores had no sutures so I kept feeding her apple sauce with pro-biotic in it because she began to refuse the yogurt. We gave her scrambled egg every day. also, we put a small bowl of olive oil in her box and she drank that pretty well on her own. In fact we woke to her crop feeling very much larger and more watery and I felt no solids. I messaged it and hoped it could now pass. But, by night, Sunday the crop had shrunk back to the gulf ball size and was again firm like play dough. She continued to have runny pooh with little to no solids. it looked like she had lost about 1/2 LBS which is a lot considering she was down to 4 LBS when I brought her in last Wednesday, that is a big percentage. So, Monday I called the vet who willingly sold me silk sutures with a back cutting, curved needle, they are not dissolving, so I hope that will be fine. By today, she ate the egg this morning but refused the apple sauce. We had been alternating ACV and electrolyte water every other day. It looked like she was not drinking much. It is a little hard to tell how much because she kept knocking over the waterer. So, we gathered up surgical gloves, betadine, scalpel, saline wash to rinse the crop after opening it. We had hemostats and tweezers. I wrapped her in a towel, laid her on her side on a "blue pad", covered her head and we began the surgery process. My husband is a hunter so had no problem cutting her except he did not want to make me cry or hurt our beloved pet. This one is actually "his" chicken. So, she did squawk a bit and kick at the first cut but she calmed quickly. He got into the crop and began pulling out green strands we believe to be grass. Some were as much as 5 or more inches. the weird thing is that we live in MI and the grass has not grown in more that a month and there is no long grass in our yard. . We could see the scrambled egg, and some leaves in the stuff he pulled out. The liquid was very little and clear. There was no smell to what we pulled out. We only rinsed the crop at the incision point as I feared filling it and it backing up in to her airway. We put more betadine at the opening and sutured her up. We did not find a way to get that thin between layer and hope that will not cause any problems. We closed her up. Boy, the skin is some tough stuff and with out the back cutting curved needle it wold have been quite difficult. We again cleaned the wound opening. Used an alcohol wipe to clean the feathers around the area from blood. She did bleed, but not more than one would expect. She got up easily and clucked a calm type cluck at us. She jumped off the table and walked to the kitchen and right to my husband who had done the surgery. We gave her a pinch of shreded cheese which she ate happily and then wanted to go forage around the kitchen floor, but we stopped her from that. We changed the box materials, gave her new electrolyte water and she pecked around in the box and went to roost. She did seem to pass more watery pooh. She seems a little wobbly, but cheerful enough. We are thankful for all your information. We felt a bit shakey doing this but felt that she would either die from an infection or from starvation. We could not afford to take her to an avien vet, and she did not have enough meat on her to cull her for food, and we did not want to needlessly kill our pet. So, the surgery seemed like the only option. We pray it will help and she will be back to herself soon. Her comb and waddles are still read, she is strong enough to walk on her own, she is inside where we can watch her, we feel positive about what we have done for her and we leave her in God's hands to heel well. I am not sure what the next step is. Maybe we will give her some egg tomorrow afternoon. I will give her the polyvisol vitamins, although I find it hard to get them to take them as they taste nasty. I will keep her calm and warm. I guess we will see what is next. I would not want to do this often as it is difficult and a bit stressful, but if it works and our little friend is made better, it will have been definitely worth it. Thank you for your help, and I am open to any other suggestions to help her recover successfully.
