hen appears to have a blocked crop and diarrea....now what?

[kezpock]

Hi can anyone please help me.......for just over a week now my 20 week old hen has what appears to be a blocked crop so i've tried the oil and massage thing with no luck-I've fed her live worms to try to loosen it, that didn't work either just made her kind of do a wiggly dance! I took her to the vet who doesn't really know that much but she did flush her crop and said it's not sour crop. So i'm giving her water every morning through a syringe straight down her throat to keep her fluids up and giving her natural live yogurt every evening. i have noticed that she still eats and it's slightly gone down but it's still not emptying properly by the next morning and she has brown diarrea too? Any suggestions?????? all my other hens are fine.

Thanks....

 

[LynneP]

Sometimes it can take a while for a crop to return to its original muscular strength, and the hen will overeat into the enlarged organ. What was in the crop during the impaction? If alfalfa or anything else that is fibrous, you may have a hen, as I do, who gorges on that kind of material and it will have to be eliminated from the coop and run...also, giving the hen acidic foods like diced tomatoes, diced cucumber and yogurt is soothing. it took 10 days to get my Zipfi's crop back into condition. Personally I'd skip the worms and stay with her commercial feed, even if moistened for easy digestion, or mixed with the yogurt.

It's also possible that she needs one evening without supper, kept separated and returned for breakfast the next morning. This will tell you if the crop is capable of returning to an empty state.

Some thoughts

https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=7693-sick-hen