Crop That Won't Empty

[BigBlueHen53]

Did this work for you?

I'm sorry, the last time Piano Chickens was on was 4/26/24. This is an old thread. I suggest you start a new thread of your own in this forum, you're sure to get some responses if you describe what's going on with your chicken. Good luck!

 

[lizo97]

I wish you the best. As I said before, slow crops are usually caused by something farther down the pipe, so to speak. All you can do is try. All of mine with these symptoms have had an underlying illness, often advanced salpingitis. Lost one with an impacted gizzard - found at necropsy. Just lost one today that has had a slow crop, I suspect cancer, but did not necropsy as my heart just wasn't in it today. Crop issues can be frustrating and difficult to narrow down.

@coach723 Could you tell me more about the impacted gizzard? I have a 5 year old girl with a crop that is not emptying. She had it at the exact same time last year (right at the beginning at the molt). The vet last year said it was an impacted gizzard and this year (a different vet) we found Capillaria in her fecal float.

 

[coach723]

Impacted gizzard is very difficult to diagnose until necropsy. Sometimes, if it's caused by a foreign object, it might show up on x ray depending on what the material was made of. There is no way to feel it or see what is actually causing a back up there. Sometimes eating a lot of fiberous material can cause a gizzard impaction if it's just too much for the gizzard to handle, or if they don't have access to proper grit. In a 5 year old hen many things can cause digestion to slow or stop. Since capillaria was found in the fecal float, I would try to treat for that first. Reproductive problems like cancers and infections can also slow or stop digestion. And parasites can also do it if there is a heavy load. My only gizzard impaction was a bird whose crop would not empty no matter what I tried. I spent 2 weeks trying. She was becoming emaciated so I euthanized. On necropsy all her organs looked normal and unremarkable, but her gizzard was crammed full of food and grit, nothing that would seem to cause a blockage, but her gizzard did not seem to be a normal size, looked smaller than I expected and there was a small kink in the proventriculus. There was nothing in her digestive tract past the gizzard, completely clean and empty. She had only been passing clear fluids with a bit of urates. So suspect it was maybe a congential deformity and it just stopped working properly. There is a disease called PDD which affects the proventriculus, but I think it's pretty rare in chickens, and it often has neurological symptoms which my bird did not have. And I've not seen a similar gizzard in any of my other birds. Outwardly, except for the crop stasis, she appeared normal and healthy, and continued to try to eat voraciously.
I wonder if your hen, if she's molting again like last time, may be ingesting a lot of feathers which could cause a problem if there were too many at once. Make sure they have access to appropriate grit all the time in a separate feeder. Or the timing could just be coincidence, and it's a completely separate cause this time. I would treat what you know for sure, the parasites, and then go from there.

 

[lizo97]

@coach723 Thank you for taking the time to write that and for sharing your necropsy. I have been treating for parasites -- she has had 5 doses of Fenbendazole and topical Ivermectin drops. I have given her subcutaneous fluids. I was hoping it was the Capillaria that was causing inflammation and that the inflammation would eventually die down. I only wish I had the courage to euthanize myself and even do a necropsy; to think when I first got chickens I actually looked for dual purpose breeds, but I cannot even put a single one down! It is so difficult to gauge how much time you should give them before making that difficult decision. I keep on thinking every morning I wake up that either she will be dead, or that her crop will have magically emptied. A year ago, the same thing happened to her -- before crop surgery, I spend 3 weeks massaging her slow crop, giving mineral oil, etc. I don't even think the crop surgery was necessary except to get the old food and grass out, because the avian vet diagnosed her with a gizzard impaction. I don't even know how she pulled through honestly. I was giving her antibiotics after surgery and she stopped wanting to eat, so I started tube feeding and I just couldn't get her weight back up. I then decided to have her eat alongside her flock and even though she was emaciated, she fought to get her place in the pecking order back. I couldn't believe how vicious her sister was, even with fencing protecting my girl. I guess I will give her a day or 2, then let her join her other flock members in chicken heaven.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

These decisions can be hard but as loving chicken tenders I feel we always have to act in the best interest of the chicken.

 

[coach723]

Sometimes it really is a kindness to not let them suffer. When you have done everything possible to try to help them, and nothing is working, then it's very often something that just isn't fixable. The sad part is that we often don't know for sure until after they've passed, which makes the decision so much harder. I've found that if you are wondering if it's time, then very often you have already answered that question in your heart.