Doughy Crop, ACS treatment, and feeding?

[mbishop]

You can do it! Just takes practice, patience, and a firm hand!

I think we're going to worm our hen, I just ordered Safeguard (you can find lots of threads here on it). Maybe the worms are causing the crop issue, since she's been on ACS for 7 days now and symptoms are not improving, we'll try this out.

Good luck to you, hope things arrive quick enough to help.

Deworming has helped our hen immensely! I am seeing an improvement after about 2 days of dewormer. I am giving each hen 0.23 ml of safeguard equine paste once a day (from this article) I haven’t figured out the best way to give it to them. My current strategy is to hide it in a small pile of mealworms. Not sure that’s the best way.

Here’s my thread (if you want to compare notes)…

https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...-get-it-in-the-chicken.1464797/#post-24403661

 

[sholnay]

Deworming has helped our hen immensely! I am seeing an improvement after about 2 days of dewormer. I am giving each hen 0.23 ml of safeguard equine paste once a day (from this article) I haven’t figured out the best way to give it to them. My current strategy is to hide it in a small pile of mealworms. Not sure that’s the best way.

Here’s my thread (if you want to compare notes)…

https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...-get-it-in-the-chicken.1464797/#post-24403661

Thanks, we got some liquid dewormer and will just use a syringe to feed her.

At the moment, her crop is HUGE, it has been ballooning all day without us doing anything (and only water in her crate, which I don't even think she's had any)... We are going to vomit her, I haven't felt it this big before, a tight water balloon...

Wormer comes tomorrow so we'll start her on that, then the ACS finishes up this week, hopefully she makes it long enough. We'll keep attacking on multiple fronts since she seems to be not progressing too well so far.

The whole vomitting thing is interesting, seems like so many people say don't do it but at this point, she's starting to gurgle and spit up liquid when I massage her crop so I think it's pretty severe.

 

[mbishop]

Thanks, we got some liquid dewormer and will just use a syringe to feed her.

At the moment, her crop is HUGE, it has been ballooning all day without us doing anything (and only water in her crate, which I don't even think she's had any)... We are going to vomit her, I haven't felt it this big before, a tight water balloon...

Wormer comes tomorrow so we'll start her on that, then the ACS finishes up this week, hopefully she makes it long enough. We'll keep attacking on multiple fronts since she seems to be not progressing too well so far.

The whole vomitting thing is interesting, seems like so many people say don't do it but at this point, she's starting to gurgle and spit up liquid when I massage her crop so I think it's pretty severe.

Yeah, I’m not sure what to make of the vomiting either. I hope all goes well!

 

[sholnay]

Just vomited her, no problem, just watched some youtube videos and read some posts here. It wasn't traumatic for her (that I could tell) and she already seems to be feeling a little better now that her crop is much more empty. She's so docile at this point that it wasn't difficult and she doesn't put up any fuss with us holding her now (partly because shes so lethargic and probably party because we've been holding her and hand feeding her now for 2+ weeks, multiple times a day).

Anyway, contrary to other vomiting videos I watched and from everything I can tell, she does NOT have sour crop. There was no smell, and the liquid was mostly clear/whitish (basically the food we've been feeding her). Some little bits of something came up too, who knows what that was. We'll hydrate her and hope for the best - Since other things haven't helped directly, I'm really hopeful the worming does the trick. I look forward to the day she can run with her pals again.

 

[sholnay]

Day 1 of worming, hoping for the best. We're administering 1/4 mL of Safe-Guard for Goats Liquid (100mg/mL) for 5 days (seems to be a range of how to give to chickens, from 1 dose and done, to daily doses ranging from 3-5 days, and follow-ups).

Still continuing on ACS only water for the next 2-3 days (10 days treatment total)

Still continuing to feed homemade food: scrambled eggs, peanut butter powder, oats, olive oil, water, blended to a paste.

 

[sholnay]

This has basically turned in to my journal, maybe someone will stumble on it in the future and it will prove helpful.

Day 2 of wormer and her crop this morning was as empty as it's been since we started all of the fuss a few weeks ago (about the size of a marble), that's got to be a good sign, right?

It seems like she has a little more pep in her step but it might just be wishful thinking.

 

[sholnay]

So sad that every day is such a rollercoaster, shortly after posting yesterday, she took a turn for the lethargic. She's really slow yesterday and today. Eyes closed a lot.

Her crop was not empty but not full this morning, probably golf ball sized.

Here's to hoping some sign of life starts to come back, otherwise I'm not really sure what we're doing with her anymore.

 

[sholnay]

Last Thursday, Cherry exhibited severe lethargy, barely opening her eyes, barely moving, fluffed up, sitting. Her crop was not emptying. We again said our good byes, we took her out in the sun and massaged her as she sad in our lap, eyes closed. Not even energy to keep her wings tucked tight. We stopped worming on Thursday as well (so, 4 days at 1/4 mL). We figured if it was going to work, it would have worked. She took a dive when she was on the medicine so maybe that was the culprit. The difference we noticed with her on Wednesday and Thursday is that she was pooping a LOT. Every hour or two she had a big wet poop in the cage. Some were pasty, some were tubular and wet, but they didn't look horrible like our previous chicken who passed. Anyway, that was an interesting note, her digestion had seemed to pick up, even though she was looking so bad outwardly.

We fully expected to wake up to an expired bird on Friday but to our dismay, she pulled through the night. Continued feeding/hydrating through tubes. Saturday, she actually appeared more energetic, her crop was nearly empty in the morning again, the most it's been in a long while. We fed her a big helping of her glop and electrolyte water (glop our name for her pureed mixture, patent pending?). In the afternoon, her crop was not feeling too full so we again fed her and I massaged her out in the sun. Her energy levels were much higher than before. On a whim, I tried giving her some treats in my hand and she GOBBLED them up! This is the first time we've seen her take interest in food in 3 weeks? maybe 4. We got very excited at this turn of events. We hung her pellets in her cage and she immediately went to them and started eating her regular pellets! We made sure she was very full on Saturday night before turning off the lights.

Sunday morning, crop the emptiest it's been in a month, more signs of energy, more signs of wanting normal food. We continue to tube feed her regularly to make sure she's getting something but I'm also hanging food and water in her cage again. This is the highest point of the rollercoaster we've been on so far and we hope it continues to go up.

Still remaining cautiously optimistic. We keep forgetting to weigh her in the morning but we will do that tomorrow and start to get a better baseline for her health and weight.

 

[sholnay]

Despite our hope from last Saturday, Cherry regressed back to lethargy over the past few days.

We made a vet appointment 10'ish days ago (all avian vets are booked up here!) and decided to keep it to get some sort of indication of what's going on.

Unfortunately, Cherry had pretty severe Carcinomatosis, tumors riddling her body. We decided to send her on her way so we aren't prolonging her suffering (we'd already kept her kicking for a month! far too long). Though the doctor did say there isn't really an indication that they're "suffering" as we might think, just her body shutting down and stopping necessary work.

Cherry and her sister Buffy both passed within a month of each other, we're only guessing the same issue with both.

What a rollercoaster the past month has been - we feel better equipped to help our current hens with any sickness they may encounter.

RIP Cherry and Buffy.

First photo is Buffy, second and third are Cherry hanging with our dog and Cherry overseeing the neighborhood from the front porch.

 

[AmyMil]

Read your journal. So sorry.