Crop surgery "success" but I don't think that is the problem, any ideas?

[Jillian118]

Hi All,

I noticed one of my barred rocks had an unusually large crop last week. I went to pick her up and she is skin and bone. So I massaged the crop to see if I could feel anything, and felt nothing but liquid. I separated her from the flock, massaged her crop etc.. and when I checked on her in the am it was the same.

So I vomited her in the am and took away food, put her in the horse stall with only water. When I came home after work to check on her, the crop had refilled with all the liquid she had been drinking. So I massaged again, lather rinse repeat to the next day and her crop had still not drained. So I vomited her again. Nothing came up but liquid and dissolved crumble.

She was still active, scratching etc.. but so thin I knew she was obviously starving to death and she was getting much less active. So Sunday, I figured she was a goner for sure. Nothing was working and she was near death and I figured we had nothing to lose. Her crop was still full of liquid again, so I did the surgery on her.

Of course lots of fluid came out, there was a lot of sand, pebbles and gravel in her crop and she had eaten wisteria leaves whole because she is a greedy beggar. So I pulled out everything I could find, but there really wasn't much in there as far as a blockage. I assumed one of the huge leaves was blocking the entrance to her digestive tract. I irrigated and irrigated to get everything out.

She seemed to be doing very well afterwards, mostly angry that she was now wet. I withheld food for a day and then slowly introduced mushy foods etc... as per BYC recommendations. I have not allowed her to forage at all and she seemed to be doing ok until today. Crop is now full-ish again with water (I only left her with a certain amount) and she is feeling low.

I fear she may have a blockage somewhere else. She is pooping watery poops. She originally was interested in food, but today she is not.

I have wormed her, and checked her for parasites, there are none I can see. I gave her some antibiotics and turned her out with her sisters for about an hour.

I don't think she is going to make it, but I am really stumped.

I am all ears if anyone has any ideas. I have lost a couple of my girls recently and I am worried that I may be doing something wrong by them.

Thanks in advance for any of your ideas or thoughts.

 

[Eggcessive]

Sorry about your hen. I don't have much experience with impacted crop, but recently lost a hen to an impacted gizzard which was discovered after a necropsy i performed. I would wonder about trying an epsom salt flush or some mineral oil as a laxative in case she has obstruction further down in the proventiculus or gizzard?

 

[Jillian118]

I don't think she is going to make it past today. But I will definately try that when I get home if she is still with us. She was pretty hunched up this morning. I put her out with her sisters as she was so sad by herself.

 

[BantamLover21]

Her symptoms sound similar to those of one of my Cochin bantams a few weeks ago. She became somewhat lethargic, stopped eating, drank a ton (resulting in a giant fluid filled crop), and had really watery droppings. I tried everything--Corid (in case of Coccidiosis), force feeding baby bird food to build her strength, vitamins in the water, and even colloidal silver (in case of infection). Despite my best efforts, she died after about a week of this behavior. Wondering what could possibly have been wrong, I did a necropsy on her. Turns out that she was egg bound. All of her other organs were normal, I found a solid shelled egg encased with about a week's worth of egg yolk in her reproductive tract. I never suspected the egg binding, since she didn't waddle/walk strangely or feel hard.

Unfortunately, at this point I don't think there is much you can do, whatever your hen's problem. If she is still alive, though, I would offer her some moistened feed or scrambled eggs to tempt her to eat, and possibly put some poultry vitamins in her water. The mineral oil flush that Eggcessive suggested might help, too, if she has some sort of digestive tract blockage.

Good luck!

 

[Jillian118]

Ok thank you for that. I will definitely treat her for that, it's not like it will hurt anything at this point

 

[Jillian118]

Ok, little update, as I was doing the treatment for egg binding, and when I picked her up, I noticed her abdomen is hard as a rock. I don't feel any particular lumps just an over all hardness. My poor girl. It doesn't feel like fluid in there, but I will take a needle to it per the instructions from other threads and see if that is what it is. Thank you all for all your help.