How large of an object can pass through the crop?

[rufus]

If it were me, I would not do anything drastic until I found out what was in there. Talk to your vet, and get an X ray. If it is something like a machine screw or nut or a tack, you might just want to put her down rather than have her suffer and you expend a lot of money.

Sometimes we have to make real hard decisions.

Good Luck,

Rufus

 

[raroo]

Well, miracle of miracles, I wake up this morning and go check on her. Her crop is EMPTY, except for a bit of grit at the bottom. I grab her and start feeling around, and I can't find the object! I go wake up fiance, tell him to look, and he can't find anything either. I check her again, and there's about 1/4 amount of the grit that was in there when I FIRST checked. Each time we pass her back and forth, there's less and less grit left, I think we were massaging it down as we were feeling her.

Well! So I went and made her a soft meal, and the true test will be how well she handles that. If her crop swells up all huge again and takes hours to digest, then I'll know I somehow missed the object. I don't see how though, her crop was COMPLETELY flat and I'd have to be a complete dolt to miss something I felt when her crop was FULL.

I was having dreams about her all night!

 

[ClairedeLune]

Praying for you and her.

 

[raroo]

Well it's been all day and she's still doing fine!

She's passed whatever object was blocking her crop. Leave it to her to spontaneously recover on the very day she would have had to have either an uncomfortable crop flush or a painful surgery!

What a gal!

 

[Judy]

Great news!

And a smart hen... now you know, just tell them the vet is tomorrow....

 

[tulie13]

Ran across this thread while re-researching impacted crops. This sounds just like my chicken now. She has sour crop for the 2nd time, and she is only 3 months old!

This time, I can feel something down at the base of her crop, feels like a stone. It seems to be blocking her tube. We have done 3 baking soda flushes over the past 10 days, and after a flush feeding her olive oil by syringe. Then trying soft food the next day, then gets sour again, then flush again, etc.

I don't know if this rock will pass through - it seems to be somewhat irregularly shaped although it's hard to tell by feel. Chicken Little (so named because she's SMALLER than other hens that we have that are only 2 months old!!) seems perky and lively, and wants to eat the buttons off my shirt when I'm holding her. I'm afraid she'll pull one off and then I will have no choice but to do the surgery!

How long can this go on, with only a liquid diet? Olive oil is fat, but no protein - I can totally pulverize an egg yolk and blend it in the oil and maybe that will pass through, too.

My poor chickie!!!