Guinea meet water balloon crop

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Help and advice would be greatly appreciated. I have not run in to this before with chick chicks or guinea keets.

Guinea meet was 7 days old on September 30th but look like a day old chick (everyone else was normal size). I picked this out to give it a chance. Now this chick ate weird as it would try to eat from a beak vs out of the food dish. It took time but I got her to eat out of a dish. She will still look at other chicks mouths for food but eats well on her own now.
As chicks I have gotten from the store had coccidia or salmonella. So I always monitor poops.


Now December11 the keet is the size of a 3 week old. Very slow to grow. The other chicks are normal.

4 days ago(Sunday) the keet was having trouble standing and lethargic so I took her and I separated her . She was given her warmth and food (ate on her own) and did have diarrhea poops. I can’t remember if her crop had anything in it- I want to say it was empty ? But I do not know. After this I have been monitoring her. I put a supplemental heater with the rest of the 3 chicks (four including her) . I gave toltramax to everyone. (Day one)

Day two (Monday)I noticed her crop was balloon like but she was active and ate with everyone else. She seemed to be doing well with the heat source now.

Day 3 (Tuesday)I noticed her drinking a lot of water. Her crop was a water balloon. Everyone else’s was full too but you could feel their crop being full with food too. I took food and water way this night.

Day 4 (Wednesday) in the morning i checked and keet’s crop was still full of water and she did not run to the food. I took her out and kept her separate. Gave scrambled eggs but no water. She ate a little bit. This was all in the morning. Afternoon gave Bromaline to help clear potential clog. When you would lightly touch her crop it would come up.

6pm her crop was still full. Crop stayed full and did not go down. I massaged her crop. She had a plain urate poop. Gave more Bromaline. She Had small normal colored poop. So the Bromaline enzyme worked a little .
She then was pushing out the food stuck in her crop on her own( would shake her head flinging it everywhere. I emptied her crop gave digestive enzymes mixed with pumpkin. She had a poop with zero urate. Late in the night (12 am/1am ) I put her away with the rest of the chicks but took out all pine shavings. When I emptied her crop I did find pine shavings. She was very tired but could stand on her own. Crop was size of golf ball.

Next morning day 5 (Thursday). She is alert and feathers are not ruffled. Crop still the size of golf ball. I emoted her crop again and got anoth piece of pine shaving and mostly gritty pellets (dissolved pellets) . Still a bulge (felt like a warm water balloon) Gave pumpkin with digestive enzymes and a drop of apple vinegar (with mother) and some olive oil. She had a poop with no urates and it stunk but no diarrhea. No access to food or water. Today She does not want to be by herself and becomes stressed so I have one other chick with her. She is alert and strong (walking around ). Today is the first time I ever heard her make any noise (when I took the other chicks out and gave her own space). I have had guineas before and they were loud as chicks especially when they would call for each other. She just mad a very small noises.

I have had sick chicks before with slow moving crops and digestive enzymes normally does the trick. I’ve also never ever had chicks eat the pine shavings- at least to my knowledge. I am leaning to blockage which is why I was emptied her crop. When I emptied it this morning to the point nothing was coming out it still felt like a balloon but the size of half a ping pong ball.

I use the fine shaving pine and I found 5 pieces in her crop.
 
Thank you so much for this article/blog. I’ve reread it a few times and we seemed to be over the hump yesterday as she was active and keeping her crop relatively low. Now this morning she ran up to me and flung some liquid up from her crop because she was overly full.

Reading the article I think it is sour crop even though there is no smell. It is warm and gushy. The crop feels like a water balloon- not a balloon filled with food.

I am going to make her a crop bra/bib once she crop goes down more. And see if this helps.

Do you know what a molasses flush is?
 
Thank you so much for this article/blog. I’ve reread it a few times and we seemed to be over the hump yesterday as she was active and keeping her crop relatively low. Now this morning she ran up to me and flung some liquid up from her crop because she was overly full.

Reading the article I think it is sour crop even though there is no smell. It is warm and gushy. The crop feels like a water balloon- not a balloon filled with food.

I am going to make her a crop bra/bib once she crop goes down more. And see if this helps.

Do you know what a molasses flush is?
She's quite young for a bra, I'd try to get the crop cleared and moving without it.
Treat as Sour and if you feel she may have a blockage, then a Molasses Flush may help too.

Instructions for Molasses flush in the link below.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...in-my-5-month-old-chick.1663946/post-28601562
 
She's quite young for a bra, I'd try to get the crop cleared and moving without it.
Treat as Sour and if you feel she may have a blockage, then a Molasses Flush may help too.

Instructions for Molasses flush in the link below.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...in-my-5-month-old-chick.1663946/post-28601562
Thank you for this! Their 5 mos old is exactly what this chick is doing! I will do the molasses flush now! How long do I just offer molasses water without food?
 
These are her poops. Thank so much for all your help! I greatly appreciate it
 

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Thank you for this! Their 5 mos old is exactly what this chick is doing! I will do the molasses flush now! How long do I just offer molasses water without food?
The poops look a bit dry, hopefully the Molasses will stimulate the bowels to move.

You want her to drink all of the Molasses flush, then make plain fresh water available along with a little mushy feed. I never withhold food/water when treating a crop issue.

What do you feed? Gamebird Starter?
 
The poops look a bit dry, hopefully the Molasses will stimulate the bowels to move.

You want her to drink all of the Molasses flush, then make plain fresh water available along with a little mushy feed. I never withhold food/water when treating a crop issue.

What do you feed? Gamebird Starter?
Yes but since the crop issues I’ve been doing wheat germ, scrambled eggs and soft egg yolk.
 
The poops look a bit dry, hopefully the Molasses will stimulate the bowels to move.

You want her to drink all of the Molasses flush, then make plain fresh water available along with a little mushy feed. I never withhold food/water when treating a crop issue.

What do you feed? Gamebird Starter?
Her crop burst this morning in front of me. It did not feel overly full but I guess it was since the crop burst? It had a lot of liquid. Did not have a sour smell. Her crop is now closed. The opening was the size of a quarter. I read online not to feed her for 18 hours to only give apple sauce. Going to the store to grab her apple sauce. Her crop did have food in there from like Tuesday.

I kept flushing her crop out with saline until nothing was it. The crop was not impacted like you see in other videos. It was full of fluid with bits of food (not enough to cause a paste ).
When I was done flushing her crop I flushed her crop out with distilled water. She has listed weight since this all started not sure how to proceed food wise other than going to the store and grabbing her single ingredient organic apple sauce
 
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Yes but since the crop issues I’ve been doing wheat germ, scrambled eggs and soft egg yolk.

Her crop burst this morning in front of me. It did not feel overly full but I guess it was since the crop burst? It had a lot of liquid. Did not have a sour smell. Her crop is now closed. The opening was the size of a quarter. I read online not to feed her for 18 hours to only give apple sauce. Going to the store to grab her apple sauce. Her crop did have food in there from like Tuesday.

I kept flushing her crop out with saline until nothing was it. The crop was not impacted like you see in other videos. It was full of fluid with bits of food (not enough to cause a paste ).
When I was done flushing her crop I flushed her crop out with distilled water. She has listed weight since this all started not sure how to proceed food wise other than going to the store and grabbing her single ingredient organic apple sauce
Oh dear!
I'm sorry to hear that.

The tissue of the crop burst open? Usually that does not happen unless there's been a puncture.

You mention that the crop is now closed. Did you stitch her up? Both the skin and the crop tissue separately?

There's a lot of threads here on BYC dealing with crop surgery and aftercare, you may want to do an onsite search and read some of those.
 

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