Help my chickens got into dry cat food severely impacted crop

[Bella D]

So I went in the coop this morning and my polish hen didn't want to move she had water coming out of her mouth could hardly breathe. Her crop was hard and impacted the top part of her throat felt like a walnut in there. So I looked on here and I tried to give her a couple drops of olive oil to try and get it to move and it obviously moved into the wrong place she aspirated and died within a minute. I am so devastated my daughter and I hatched this beautiful lady last year she is super friendly and I killed her.
My Polish Rooster is also exhibiting signs he has Drool on his feathers and he's not eating or walking around with the flock. I'm reluctant to do anything now because I don't want to kill him too. I set up a cage in the coop for him with water and olive oil but I don't even know if I should do that.
Yesterday when I came home the chickens to obviously gotten into our sun room and ate our feral cats dry food. They have done this before but the feeder was completely full yesterday .I'm pretty sure that's what it is everybody else seems fine.
One of my silkies had an impacted crop that went sour and I've been treating her with miconazole she is improving we are on week two.
Is there something I can do to help this I don't want this to ever happen again.
Sorry if this is all over the place I'm really upset right now about my hen.
Thank you in advance for all your help and expertise.

 

[azygous]

This is one of the toughest things we deal with keeping chickens. Please try not to feel guilty about your Polish. From your description of her symptoms when you found her, she was very likely already in extremis and dying. Very early in my experience keeping chickens, I reached for a Brahma hen who was gasping for air, and she died as I picked her up. You need to see it as the unfortunate coincidence it was. A minute later, you would have found her after she had expired.

Any number of things could conspire with an impacted crop to turn it into a deadly condition. It sounds as if your Polish hen had something else going on, perhaps an obstruction in her larynx or esophagus that complicated matters. Treating with oil would have been like trying to treat an electrocution victim with an aspirin.

Crop issues are pretty common, and we chicken keepers need to be on the watch for them so we can treat them before they become life threatening. This isn't to suggest that you could have handled the emergency with your Polish that would have produced a better outcome. It's likely her crop was so backed up, she was already aspirating fluid before you introduced the oil.

In the eventuality you ever encounter a chicken in such dire condition again, it's important not to touch the crop or put pressure on it. A lot of the time our first impulse is to massage the crop, but a crop that's full to the gills is likely going to back up into the airway since the esophagus is already hopelessly blocked. The clue is the fluid dribbling out of the beak.

So what can you do? Probably not much if the chicken is already struggling to breathe, indicating fluid is probably already aspirated and even if the chicken survives that, pneumonia would be the result.

If a chicken has a full, impacted crop and is still breathing all right, you can insert a tube into the crop and try to syringe out some of the fluid. I've had very little luck with this, while others may have had better results. You may not have learned to tube a chicken when this emergency occurs, so you are simply stuck with your limited abilities to respond. Don't feel guilty about that. We all can't be vets with a degree in animal medicine.

Here is a rundown of crop disorders, how to recognize them, diagnose them and treat them. https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...w-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/
You are already learning to spot a sick chicken. You'll get better at it as time goes on. It's a sad fact that the longer we keep chickens, the more we learn. But the other side of the coin is that it also means our chickens sometimes give up their lives to our learning curve.

 

[Bella D]

Thank you so much azygous
I have another question I went to the feed store and spoke to a long time chicken keeper. She suggested I use a scalpel and open up the big hard knot in her crop and see what was in there. At first I thought that was a little much for me but my rooster is still showing symptoms. He had some drool this morning but he seems better I managed to get him into a dog cage with just water.
I did go ahead and open her up even though it was difficult to do.
She was packed with shavings a little bit of hay and food and it had a bad smell.
I switched from large shavings to fine shavings a few months ago I'm wondering if that is a problem.
Thank you for your kind words this has been a very difficult day. I am definitely still learning about chickens.
I think I'm going to start a new thread and post the pictures and see if toy or anyone else has any ideas.
Thank you

 

[azygous]

Starting a new thread will not accomplish what you think it will. Once you begin a thread on a subject, you begin to get people following it even though many won't comment.

Starting a new thread breaks the continuity. I for one would not be able to easily find the new thread. It doesn't matter if the thread goes on and on for weeks. Some threads can go on for years and become hundreds if pages long. There is no better way to document experience, problems with group in-put for solutions, and it all ends up making this site one of the most educational web sites on chickens that's out there.

For example, if you post photos of your exploratory necropsy of your hen's crop, several of our most experienced members will likely chime in. You would learn a lot from them.

 

[Bella D]

Thank you again azygous
I thought I should go ahead and start a new thread because I really thought cat food was a reason for her impaction. After doing a necropsy realizing it was probably shavings and not cat food that caused it I didn't want to leave that as the title, I probably should have just left it.
A lot of learning going on for me today
Also the link you posted didn't work
I will add the pictures on here also I'm really hoping that they end up helping somebody else. I never would have thought about them eating the fine shavings.
Thank you for you expertise

 

[azygous]

The link doesn't work for me, either. What the ***k! I have no patience for crap like that. What a way to run a web site, move everything, hide it somewhere, and make it impossible to communicate. Yeah, I'm in a mood. There's four inches of snow out there and it's May9th.

Okay, here's what you do to read that article. Click on my avatar at the left. Then click on "articles". Scroll down to the one on crop disorders. I hope that works.

Shouldn't need to do this to find a damn article, but that's life.

 

[azygous]

This post is a test to see if all my article links have blinked out. https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/chicken-bully-chicken-victim-a-two-sided-issue.73923/

Okay, that one works. I'm going to report this to the muckity-muks.

 

[azygous]

I fixed the link. It didn't get pasted whole. Here it is again. https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...w-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/ This should work now.

 

[Bella D]

Thank you azygous
I was able to read the article very informative. I'm sure I will need to reference this article a few more times.
sorry to hear about the snow I know how frustrating that can be we're in Washington state and we got a big snowstorm in February, it was unexpected and awful. take care

 

[analyticalblonde]

This is one of the toughest things we deal with keeping chickens. Please try not to feel guilty about your Polish. From your description of her symptoms when you found her, she was very likely already in extremis and dying. Very early in my experience keeping chickens, I reached for a Brahma hen who was gasping for air, and she died as I picked her up. You need to see it as the unfortunate coincidence it was. A minute later, you would have found her after she had expired.

Any number of things could conspire with an impacted crop to turn it into a deadly condition. It sounds as if your Polish hen had something else going on, perhaps an obstruction in her larynx or esophagus that complicated matters. Treating with oil would have been like trying to treat an electrocution victim with an aspirin.

Crop issues are pretty common, and we chicken keepers need to be on the watch for them so we can treat them before they become life threatening. This isn't to suggest that you could have handled the emergency with your Polish that would have produced a better outcome. It's likely her crop was so backed up, she was already aspirating fluid before you introduced the oil.

In the eventuality you ever encounter a chicken in such dire condition again, it's important not to touch the crop or put pressure on it. A lot of the time our first impulse is to massage the crop, but a crop that's full to the gills is likely going to back up into the airway since the esophagus is already hopelessly blocked. The clue is the fluid dribbling out of the beak.

So what can you do? Probably not much if the chicken is already struggling to breathe, indicating fluid is probably already aspirated and even if the chicken survives that, pneumonia would be the result.

If a chicken has a full, impacted crop and is still breathing all right, you can insert a tube into the crop and try to syringe out some of the fluid. I've had very little luck with this, while others may have had better results. You may not have learned to tube a chicken when this emergency occurs, so you are simply stuck with your limited abilities to respond. Don't feel guilty about that. We all can't be vets with a degree in animal medicine.

Here is a rundown of crop disorders, how to recognize them, diagnose them and treat them. https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...w-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/
You are already learning to spot a sick chicken. You'll get better at it as time goes on. It's a sad fact that the longer we keep chickens, the more we learn. But the other side of the coin is that it also means our chickens sometimes give up their lives to our learning curve.

@azygous

WOW!

I think that was the kindest, gentlest, beautifully written response I have read.

Thank you for being with us on BYC!