Crop issues

[Pixiejan]

I posted about this hen (Aly) a little while back when she tore off her toenail, but it was around that time that this started.


Slight history. I messed up and didn't get oyster shells out before they started laying and it took me a few weeks to get it out for them. We also have been trying to get them grit all winter and was only able to source it in the last few weeks (we looked 4+ times at more than one store over a few month period... and I couldn't find it online for a reasonable price where we live). They're fed an organic broiler feed (closest I could get to an all flock feed, all flock feeds seem to be really hard to find where I live and I have a rooster). I knew I needed to provide oyster shells on the side with the feed, that it didn't have enough calcium once they started laying. Near the end of January I noticed all the birds started having green poop. I figured since they didn't have grit and our grain is grain and not pellets or crumble that they were probably not able to extract everything they needed from their grain. It was also this week that we had a CRAZY cold week with -20c or lower temps at night and only highs of -18c to -16c during the day, so it was a really stressful week for them, there were a couple days where the coop was -19c in the mornings. The next errand day after I noticed the green poop, we were able to find some grit and I introduced both the grit & oyster shells. The chickens had been laying for 2-3 weeks when I added grit and oyster shells (around Feb 1st). I didn't start free feeding right away, because I was concerned they were going to get an impacted crop because they were really going to town on it. But I was offering both multiple times per day (I probably gave them too much access).

How the crop issues started
Aly, my one hen was really going to town on both the grit and oyster shells more than my other hen or rooster and within 2 days her crop stopped emptying completely and felt full of grit, oyster shells & shavings. My neighbour and I who was helping me trouble shoot, made the assumption she was deficient in something (we assumed likely the calcium). I started giving poultry cell and I started treating for impacted crop and slowly started getting things moving along. But things progressed into doughy and then sour crop. I started giving ACV in water and adding yogurt before things turned to sour crop. Around this time was when she tore off her toenail. From Sat Feb 7 to Sat Feb 14th, I treated with Monistat 7 cream, I even did a few days with 3 doses. I moved her back into the coop on the 12, she wasn't eating as much as I would have liked and I thought maybe she was missing her friends. She perked up a lot when she was added back into the coop/flock and was eating more. She had continued pooping through the entire time and aside from right before I started the anti fungal meds, her poops looked good. The one thing that worried me was her crop never got to completely emptied/flat in the morning. On the meds it was getting smaller and smaller day by day, and before the end of the treatment period the doughy crop went away and it just felt like food. I was massaging it multiple times per day and after we finished the antifungal cream I was picking her up in the mornings and massaging her crop, I even got it emptied or almost emptied one or two mornings before she started eating her food for the day. Towards the end of treatment the size of her crop in the mornings was smaller than a golfball (though not by too much), when the crop issues started her crop was the size of a large orange. After treatment ended, the crop size in the mornings continued to get slightly smaller day by day.

I started fermenting some feed last week and have been slowly adding that to their regular food for probiotics (I went too quickly at first, so I slowed down but have been increasing slowly). I also have been giving them apple cider vinegar in their water. They had yogurt last week a few times.

How things are now
Anyways, this morning Aly's crop was doughy and then this afternoon it felt more soft and squishy. Massaged it 3-4 times today and couldn't make much progress. I even spent like 30min massaging it this afternoon. I tried to get her to eat yogurt and scrambled eggs today and she wouldn't touch them, so it seems like her appetite is off again. Since I wasn't making progress and her appetite was off, I gave her a dose of the Monistat 7 cream late afternoon right before I put them to bed. Thankfully I have some leftover.

I've been able to transition them all to free feeding grit and oyster shells and they've had as much as they want for almost a week now and have had some access for over two weeks.

I was thinking I might switch them to poultry cell in their water tomorrow and I was going to continue the antifungal meds for I guess another 7 days. But I'm just wondering if I'm missing something. I feel like I have my bases covered now and I've been trying to be as proactive as I can. Aly's comb was darker looking today than usual which has me worried maybe there's a heart issue or something, but we did have a change in weather and it was above freezing today for the first time in almost 2 months. We've had a colder than usual winter and I think that's put a lot of extra stress on them (we even had to move them into the cottage on the property for a weekend when it went down to -40c). I don't have an insulated coop (we have piled snow up around it to keep the heat in as much as possible) and we had planned on having 5 chickens over the winter but lost two over the summer/fall and so don't have a 'full' coop. And we don't have electricity out to the coop, so couldn't add a heater either. Next year we plan to have a small generator to run a coop heater and we'll have a full coop with hopefully 5-6 chickens.

Anyways, I appreciate any thoughts you might have and if I'm missing anything. I was hoping before this morning that she just needed a little more time to get back to normal, I was really surprised that her crop wasn't completely emptying overnight before the end of 7 days of antifungal cream, the last chicken I treated it was emptying overnight by day 5 I think.

I'm not her favourite person these days and she hides from me at the back of the coop .

Thanks all!

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I messed up and didn't get oyster shells out before they started laying and it took me a few weeks to get it out for them. We also have been trying to get them grit all winter

Near the end of January I noticed all the birds started having green poop. I figured since they didn't have grit and our grain is grain and not pellets or crumble that they were probably not able to extract everything they needed from their grain.

Oyster shell is a Calcium Supplement, it's not considered grit, it's not hard enough.
Grit is Crushed Granite.

Both can be found at stores like TSC or online.

What is the feed you feed? Can you please post a photo of the bag and nutritional analysis.

Loose type feeds/grains can be soaked or fermented to help incorporate them more. Very often birds will pick out their favorite tidbits and leave other things they don't like, this could cause some nutritional deficits. Not having grit, they just wouldn't be able to grind up the grains as efficiently and some would likely be expelled "whole". Possible not having grit could contribute to green poop, but to me, unlikely.

Photos of poop? Photos of birds?

If the crop is not emptying and feels doughy, give her coconut oil and massage. The Miconazole can help if its sour.

You don't mention if she's laying eggs. If she isn't and should be, she may have a slow crop due to some type of reproductive issue. Often a Crop problem is a symptom of an underlying condition - a few are reproductive, worms, infection and/or coccidiosis.

The article below along with the accompanying comment section has a wealth of information about treating crop symptoms. You may want to give it a good read.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...w-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/

 

[Pixiejan]

Thanks for the article, I've been through it multiples times both when my last bird that had crop issues and with this one.

They do now have access to both grit (crushed granite) and the oyster shells. I'm in Canada and wasn't able to find grit online that was reasonably priced, the only place I could find it was $67 for 4lbs. We tried our local feed store multiple times since September!!! and they were out of stock, we also tried a local tack shop that has a lot of poultry stuff and they had oyster shells, but no grit. I don't know if our local feed place was out for months or if we just kept going at the wrong time. I'm home bound which makes it more complicated and harder to get things from the store, but we're also quite remote and so there's not a ton of stores to try.

She was laying for about a month, but hasn't for two weeks. Her last egg was the day I noticed her crop wasn't emptying.

I have been watering down their feed over the winter a lot so more of the fines got eaten, would even make a mash with the leftover fines from the day before on a regular basic. And I'm transitioning them over to fermented feed now.

I'll post some photos of them from this morning once I've been out and get some recent poop photos.

 

[Pixiejan]

Here's a couple poop pictures. The one with crop issues has been having darker green poop than the others, which to me has been making sense because she's not eating as much as the others.


This is Sweet Pea & Paddington.



This is Sweet Aly (she's the one with crop issues).


This is what the food looks like. This is partly fermented, partly dry, mixed together. I was noticing before we added the grit that there was undigested food in their poop.




Oh, I did forget to mention that my neighbour and I thought I was likely overdoing the whole corn. I was giving them whole corn right before bed to help keep them warm overnight and the week we had cold temperatures during the day as well, I was giving some whole corn during the day to help keep them warm. Paddington when it's cold doesn't eat very much at all, but will eat the corn, so likely I was too heavy handed with it for such a small flock. In the last two weeks I haven't given any whole corn, except for one night when it was going down to -25c and then it was just a couple kernels each.

Oh and all three will be 9 months old on Thursday of this week. The girls are Blue Copper Marans and Paddington is an olive egger.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

The poop looks normal to me.

Pretty flock!

 

[Pixiejan]

The poop looks normal to me.

Pretty flock!

Great! I'll cross that off of my list of things to worry about!