My Roo, Duke had been not quite himself for a while. Stopped crowing, became lame, but a couple of times. His tail feathers dropped and his comb flipped over with black or purple spots that would disappear then come back. I had a thread up on here about it, tried antibiotics, electrolytes, we were going to try a de wormer next. He passed last Friday. There was pretty much nothing left of him. NO meat on his bones. We were terrified that what he had was contagious so we had him looked at. Post mortem. Turns out his gizzard was hard as a rock. The outside of it was more like bone than like tissue. Inside he had a blockage. So sad. Despite the grit we gave him he still got sick. Has anyone else heard of this?
I've also heard of impacted gizzard. As dawg53 mentioned, it is sometimes mistaken for impacted crop. Unfortunately, it is much more difficult to treat than impacted crop, as it would require major surgery to remove the obstruction. I think that the best preventative measures are to supply your birds with grit, and avoid letting them eat fibery grass or other hard objects. And I am sorry that you lost Duke.
