Have a sick chicken; listless, puffy on one side of breast, gasps

[BgNH]

Hi All,

I may already know what the problem is, having read other posts that describe similar symptoms for my one sick chicken.

The chicken is a 9-week old Golden Comet hen. She has one puffy breast that is soft to the touch, feeling like it contains gas. She is listless and appears to gasp, or produce a wide-open jaw yawn for periods and then stops this behavior.

From what I've read it appears to be a distended crop?

I have given her one treatment of olive oil, but I only had a straw and so could only present the oil to her beak and observed that she probably got some of it down. Also, massaged the distended side a bit. I intend to get an actual eye dropper and see if I can get more olive oil into her crop.

Also, I've made a short video so that I could better describe the behavior. I placed it on YouTube at this location: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9FVlI3dkl0

There are two birds and she is the one in the background. Any advice would be appreciated.

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[BgNH]

First off, thanks to all of the "Welcome!" replies to my introductory post. Very nice of you 'all.

Now, this chicken does not seem to be getting better. She is eating and drinking on occasion. Her wide-open yawn, pellican beak movements occur with an occasional grand twisting of the neck.

Did a couple more applications of olive oil, but I really cant seem to get it into her beak; just on it with the assumption that she is ingesting some of it, somehow.

Her crop still appears grossly bloated. She has periods of good activity followed by longer periods of lethargy.

Can anyone tell me what I should expect, whether I should just allow this to continue? Again, this is my first encounter with any problem with my chickens.

Thank you!

 

[Mandalina]

Are you using a medicine dropper to get the olive oil down? it is much faster and easier than trying to drip it in.
I would keep massaging it bc that usually does help. I would keep her away from food and put her onto a soft diet for a few days penned up away from the others, and keep a close eye on her.

good luck! my silkie had the same problem and 2 days of yogurt, olive oil and rubbing she was good as new.

 

[BgNH]

Thanks Mandalina. I'll give that a shot. I am using a baby syringe thing. I'll try harder to get the olive oil inside the beak and I'll also start the separation and yogurt diet and report back.

 

[BgNH]

OK, here's an update on my sick chicken:

I quarantined the bird for several days, feeding only olive oil soaked bread, yogurt and water. After a few days she began to perk up, but generally the bloating, exaggerated "yawning" is still there.

I decided to do some more online research and came across a description of Pendulous, or "drop" Crop. The description is pretty much exact. So I no longer believe it to be distended crop.

http://hybridturkeys.com/Media/PDF_files/Health/Health_PC.pdf

I have released her back in with the rest of the flock and will continue to watch her. She appears to continue to have the same symptoms, but now participates more fully with the others, running now and then, etc. My concern though is that the condition may attract other problems that could prove to be a problem to the flock.

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