Crop trouble

[Leo1]

I posted this yesterday, but I'm going to start again to have it more organized and see if anyone has any ideas based on where my girl is now vs where she was 2 days ago. 3 days ago she was fine and is in the middle of molting with her feathers growing back in nicely and at a reasonable rate.
The day before yesterday I noticed that one of my Brahmas had a solid mass of what seemed to be grass in her crop. Gave her a little oil and massage and no progress come morning. Yesterday, I gave her some more oil 30mL and more massage. Also gave ACV, some digestive enzymes and a raw egg that she ate up pretty happily. She was uninterested in eating anything else. This morning, no progress. We have gone from solid mass to what seems like mostly liquid, but none of the liquid seems to be moving through. Her poos are that blue green algae color and soft and mushy. Still has urates in there, so her kidneys are good. Today, she doesn't what any food, including egg. I gave her some more water about 15 mL (this is all with a tube down into her crop), mixed with organic, unsulfered blackstrap molasses and ACV and a few herbs that are supposed to help encourage digestion. If nothing moves out of her crop by morning, no more can be added; it's full. When we started it wasn't terribly large, but definitely blocked up. She's still scratching about, but I have her in a crate in the run when I'm not right there to watch her, so I can keep an eye on things. She had a ting of purple in her comb today, which probably isn't a good sign.
Is this how impacted crop progresses or are we headed in the wrong direction? Is it time for crop surgery or does it sound like something else?
This is a beloved girl and I want so much to help her! She's just over two and has lost a fair amount of weight but I'm thinking a reasonable amount of that is from the molting. She doesn't, however, have much more to lose. She's not skin and bones yet, though.
Thoughts?
Thanks so much!

 

[seminolewind]

If it's not a hard as a rock, and not going down, she may have a blockage where you can't get to it. If she's pooing that algae-green poo, there may be nothing going down, and her own fat stores are gone.

 

[Leo1]

Does that mean there's nothing I can do?

 

[Leo1]

Any other thoughts? Is this hopeless?

 

[Leo1]

Well, I just did surgery. I have no idea if the crop is the primary problem or not, but it was huge. There was quite a bit of grass in there probably 2-3 tbsp plus grain and lots of liquid. It was pretty smelly, but less smelly than I would have expected. I think that's the ACV I have been giving her. Is impacted crop always a big solid clump.? This grass didn't seem to be clumped, but there was a lot and the pieces were pretty long. Does it sound like it could have been impacted or more like a blockage further down? I had to at least try because nothing was getting through and she wasn't going to make it. So at the very at least I know I tried!

 

[ten chicks]

Well, I just did surgery. I have no idea if the crop is the primary problem or not, but it was huge. There was quite a bit of grass in there probably 2-3 tbsp plus grain and lots of liquid. It was pretty smelly, but less smelly than I would have expected. I think that's the ACV I have been giving her. Is impacted crop always a big solid clump.? This grass didn't seem to be clumped, but there was a lot and the pieces were pretty long. Does it sound like it could have been impacted or more like a blockage further down? I had to at least try because nothing was getting through and she wasn't going to make it. So at the very at least I know I tried!

Sounds like an impact. What did you use to stitch inside and out? Keep stitches clean and keep applying antibiotic ointment(nothing ending in "caine/cane"toxic to chickens) to area. Give her soft foods for couple of days,you do not want any strain on crop. For pain give her a baby aspirin 81mg or reg 325 mg aspirin,dose is 25mg per lb of body weight,crush and place in water. Stop the ACV for awhile,until she heals.

 

[Janet Pesaturo]

It does sound like an impacted crop, I don't think the problem was a blockage further down. But the question is why it became impacted. One common cause is dehydration, which causes crop stasis, a fancy term for stuff moving through sluggishly. Then the question is, why did she become dehydrated? Any number of reasons and possible illnesses. So what I'm saying is that crop impaction can be a consequence of many different problems. Even if you have cleared the crop and she recovers, she might well have an underlying illness.

I know this is a personal decision, but I never do crop surgery. It is a major surgery, cutting into the GI tract, and the bird is not anesthetized. This is extremely painful. I know it's hard to lose them, but they have short lives and don't live for future plans and dreams the way do. I figure I've given them a great life for the time they had, and put down birds like this. I'm sorry. I hope yours recovers.

 

[ten chicks]

Most common thing to cause impacted crop is long grass,it get twisted and knots up and cannot be digested.

 

[enola]

Congratulations for being brave enough to attempt surgery to save her. Keep us posted on how she does.

 

[Country4ever]

It might be something further down the tract that you can't do anything about. You might google "Sour crop" or even search on this site.
I would be giving her yogurt with live cultures.
Also.......if you are giving her scratch that contains corn, I would definitely stop that. Corn is horrible for chickens. Mine used to get impacted crops alot, but haven' t gotten it at all since I quit with the scratch. I give them black oil sunflower seed and they do fine with that.

I had a chicken that got a pendulous crop. No matter what I did, nothing would move down. It was always full of fluid. sometimes if chickens have a huge crop for awhile, the crop loses its innervation to it and it can no longer contract to help food go down.

I tried making a "bra"-type thing to hold the huge crop up, but it didn't work very well. She eventually died.
Has your chicken started eating the bedding you have in the crate? sometimes that's a sign that they are starving.........or have something like "pica"........in which they eat funky things.

Just hold off on solid food for awhile. When you have a chicken with an impacted crop, you must massage the heck out of it, many times a day. I'm not sure its indicated for a pendulous crop with just fluid.
I would still massage it gently, in hopes that it would stimulate it to contract.
Good luck to you.........I know how important this chicken is to you. We've all been there.