I accidentally dropped a bread tie in the run and my 8 month old buff Orpington, Phoebe, ate it before I could stop her! What will happen? What should I do? Will she be o.k.? I am pretty new to keeping chickens so any advice will be helpful. Thank you!
I don't know much about this, but I think she'll be fine. After all, they do eat grit and stuff. I'm just worried about the stuff in the tie...
Give her a pet and put it from your mind A chicken's crop is incredibly resilient. Where I used to live, our landlord kept battered old cars in our yard (classy right?). There were little cubes of glass on the ground from shattered car windows. Well, I did an autopsy on one of my hens (peritonitis) and opened her crop out of curiousity. She had rocks, glass, bits of metal... all sorts of rubbish in there! It's incredible how tough that little organ is.
Really there's not much you can do. I'm sure my chickens have eaten bits of metal or glass before, since they free range often - and we're always doing construction type jobs (we try to pick up everything, but...). Most likely nothing will come of it. I'm not sure whether it'd stay in the crop/gizzard or whether it'll come out, but I doubt your hen will see any ill affects.
Oh! Thank you so much everyone for all your advice! I feel so much better now. My little daughter, Lily, loves Phoebe (and so do I!) so much and we were so worried. We are so glad to hear your stories and hope that she will be fine. Thank you!
We butchered three roosters this spring. I opend the gizzard of one, out of curiosity, and found a screw in there.
