Help with X-rays of chicken with slow crop and GI tract infection

[Winderdear]

For the full backstory, I have been keeping a record of my chicken’s health journey in this thread.

I took my hen to a vet who treats poultry but is not a specialist. She took these x-rays:



I was hoping someone could help me understand them a bit better. The vet told me there was no impaction anywhere, and that even the largest stone in her gizzard should be able to go down. She also told us the crop looked to be full of gas.

I would like to know if others agree on this. Also, can anyone see anything of concern here? What is that dark cheetoh-shaped thing to the right of the gizzard in the profile photo?

My hen is doing better after her treatment of amoxicillin, but her crop is still slow, and even her best poops still look like this:



We are concerned that there is some bottleneck in the digestive system which is causing her poop solids to be extruded in small pieces. I’d really appreciate some feedback if anyone knows how to read x-rays.

We have not tried the epsom salt flush yet with the tube feeding kit. If the impaction is from grit and stones, how likely is it to help?

 

[AinaWGSD]

What is that dark cheetoh-shaped thing to the right of the gizzard in the profile photo?

That's just a loop of intestine, it's dark because it's filled with gas. Air/gas shows up as darker grey or black on x-rays, tissues like muscles and organs are a lighter grey (fluid can also be lighter grey) and solid objects like grit/rocks/metal/bones shows up white or nearly white.

I don't know enough about normal chicken x-rays to comment on these, but I would agree your vet is probably right about there not being an impaction. The gizzard looks pretty normal, if it were impacted with grit I would expect it to be mostly bright white on x-ray without the dark gas pockets between stones. That's not to say there couldn't possibly be an impaction of plant material (that wouldn'tnecessarilyshowup on xrays since it's a similar density as soft tissue), but nothing looks dilated or displaced like you would expect to see with an impaction or mass.

 

[Winderdear]

That's just a loop of intestine, it's dark because it's filled with gas. Air/gas shows up as darker grey or black on x-rays, tissues like muscles and organs are a lighter grey (fluid can also be lighter grey) and solid objects like grit/rocks/metal/bones shows up white or nearly white.

I don't know enough about normal chicken x-rays to comment on these, but I would agree your vet is probably right about there not being an impaction. The gizzard looks pretty normal, if it were impacted with grit I would expect it to be mostly bright white on x-ray without the dark gas pockets between stones. That's not to say there couldn't possibly be an impaction of plant material (that wouldn'tnecessarilyshowup on xrays since it's a similar density as soft tissue), but nothing looks dilated or displaced like you would expect to see with an impaction or mass.

Thank you so much for your insight! I wish I knew why her crop was slow, but having a second opinion on whether there is impaction or something concerning makes me feel a lot better!