Hi All,
Though I’ve been reading these forums for years, this is the first time I’m posting. I’m hoping someone has some miracle answer for me here as I am at the point of loosing my sweetest girl Lucy.
She is a 4 years old brown-sex linked hybrid. She is my sweetest girl always wanting love and attention. I will be sad to loose her.
Last Saturday I noticed that her crop was enlarged to the size of a softball and somewhat hard in the morning, much to early for her crop to be that size. I immediately separated her from the flock, brought her inside and started basic treatment for impacted crop. She did not have any symptoms of sour crop. From Saturday until Tuesday I did olive oil and massage, I tried a “magic mixture” of cinnamon, chilli powder, baking soda, lemon juice, ginger, and water. Continued with massage, removed all food, provided water and grit. The mass did not move or change, though it would get softer at the end of the day. She was basically only pooping white liquify uretes at that point.
Concerned that what I was doing wasn’t helping pass the impaction, I took Lucy to the vet. I hate spending the money at the vet, but I was willing to lose a couple hundred. Vet tested crop fluid for infection/disease, found nothing. Felt crop thought same thing as I, but thought maybe she was just overly dehydrated so gave her fluids and sent me home with a GI meds Metoclopramide to try to help get things moving. He said try that for a day or so and if it doesn’t work we could x-ray, but it would be costly and if it was stomach surgery etc it was probably not worth it for a chicken as it could be 1,000s.
Brought the meds home, continued with massage and feeding water with electrolytes/probiotics and the meds over the next couple days. Only improvement was now she was pooping teeny tiny little stringy blackish/dark green poops with with uretes. By teeny tiny, I mean almost tiny slivers of mini worm size. Not normal size at all.
I started reading about crop impact surgery and decided that if she wasn’t better by Friday (this morning) I would attempt it with a friend. A vet friend of mine (not a bird specialist) helped me conduct the crop surgery this morning. We had all the sterile items we needed, and surgery went well. However, after watching other videos I was expecting to pull out some kind of mass of straws, grasses, maybe plastics? Nope, all normal foods & grains, seeds, blue berries. Also, unlike any of the videos I watched everything was somewhat goey, but solid and didn’t really smell bad at all. (I hadn’t fed her in almost a week and that stuff was just sitting in there, surprised it didn’t smell). So I kinda figure, okay if there is a blockage...it wasn’t in the crop. Possible that it’s further down, possible that she has something else going on.
I started trying to look up more on forums about maybe her poop as an indicator or anything else that could be affecting her. I read something that indicated she could possibly have a digestive infection, but the doctor said her crop fluids didn’t show signs of anything. The symptoms were similar enough for me to try an antibiotic shot of .5ml Tylan 50 to the skin on the back of her neck this evening. She seems to be going further downhill and faster. I am tube feeding(not all the way into the crop as she has an sutured cut from this morning) as she will not drink any water nor will she eat any yogurt/applesauce/soft foods. She wasn’t info the soft food at all the last few days, though she did peck at a few mealworms I tried to test if she was still hungry.
At this point I am basically emotionally prepared to loose my poor sweet girl. It is not looking good, but if someone has any insight or some magical experience that is similar and any ideas as to what may be wrong. I would greatly appreciate it. If she’s going to die anyways, it’s worth trying what I can to save her. If she doesn’t make a positive turn by Monday and is still with us, I will get her euthanized to put her out of her pain.
Any help is much appreciated. Attached are pictures of her current poops. She is lethargic, not eating, not drinking. Not sure if her crop is emptying again yet as I’ve only fed water with electrolytes and a small bit of baby bird formula. Please help if you can!
Love and thanks,
Lucy & Noelle
Though I’ve been reading these forums for years, this is the first time I’m posting. I’m hoping someone has some miracle answer for me here as I am at the point of loosing my sweetest girl Lucy.
She is a 4 years old brown-sex linked hybrid. She is my sweetest girl always wanting love and attention. I will be sad to loose her.
Last Saturday I noticed that her crop was enlarged to the size of a softball and somewhat hard in the morning, much to early for her crop to be that size. I immediately separated her from the flock, brought her inside and started basic treatment for impacted crop. She did not have any symptoms of sour crop. From Saturday until Tuesday I did olive oil and massage, I tried a “magic mixture” of cinnamon, chilli powder, baking soda, lemon juice, ginger, and water. Continued with massage, removed all food, provided water and grit. The mass did not move or change, though it would get softer at the end of the day. She was basically only pooping white liquify uretes at that point.
Concerned that what I was doing wasn’t helping pass the impaction, I took Lucy to the vet. I hate spending the money at the vet, but I was willing to lose a couple hundred. Vet tested crop fluid for infection/disease, found nothing. Felt crop thought same thing as I, but thought maybe she was just overly dehydrated so gave her fluids and sent me home with a GI meds Metoclopramide to try to help get things moving. He said try that for a day or so and if it doesn’t work we could x-ray, but it would be costly and if it was stomach surgery etc it was probably not worth it for a chicken as it could be 1,000s.
Brought the meds home, continued with massage and feeding water with electrolytes/probiotics and the meds over the next couple days. Only improvement was now she was pooping teeny tiny little stringy blackish/dark green poops with with uretes. By teeny tiny, I mean almost tiny slivers of mini worm size. Not normal size at all.
I started reading about crop impact surgery and decided that if she wasn’t better by Friday (this morning) I would attempt it with a friend. A vet friend of mine (not a bird specialist) helped me conduct the crop surgery this morning. We had all the sterile items we needed, and surgery went well. However, after watching other videos I was expecting to pull out some kind of mass of straws, grasses, maybe plastics? Nope, all normal foods & grains, seeds, blue berries. Also, unlike any of the videos I watched everything was somewhat goey, but solid and didn’t really smell bad at all. (I hadn’t fed her in almost a week and that stuff was just sitting in there, surprised it didn’t smell). So I kinda figure, okay if there is a blockage...it wasn’t in the crop. Possible that it’s further down, possible that she has something else going on.
I started trying to look up more on forums about maybe her poop as an indicator or anything else that could be affecting her. I read something that indicated she could possibly have a digestive infection, but the doctor said her crop fluids didn’t show signs of anything. The symptoms were similar enough for me to try an antibiotic shot of .5ml Tylan 50 to the skin on the back of her neck this evening. She seems to be going further downhill and faster. I am tube feeding(not all the way into the crop as she has an sutured cut from this morning) as she will not drink any water nor will she eat any yogurt/applesauce/soft foods. She wasn’t info the soft food at all the last few days, though she did peck at a few mealworms I tried to test if she was still hungry.
At this point I am basically emotionally prepared to loose my poor sweet girl. It is not looking good, but if someone has any insight or some magical experience that is similar and any ideas as to what may be wrong. I would greatly appreciate it. If she’s going to die anyways, it’s worth trying what I can to save her. If she doesn’t make a positive turn by Monday and is still with us, I will get her euthanized to put her out of her pain.
Any help is much appreciated. Attached are pictures of her current poops. She is lethargic, not eating, not drinking. Not sure if her crop is emptying again yet as I’ve only fed water with electrolytes and a small bit of baby bird formula. Please help if you can!
Love and thanks,
Lucy & Noelle
