How to Clear a Huge Impacted Crop...help!

[Plum]

If the chicken is pooping, bring her inside where you can watch her, with hold all food but offer warm water with some applesauce [the kind for human babies] mixed in the water. Gently massage the crop to break things up. The last thing you want to do is have the chicken aspirate into her lungs so please don't hang her upside down to try and get the food to come out.

 

[bonniebe]

if the crop gets play-doughy feeling when there is no fluid in it, knowing what i know now, i would just do it. the sooner it's done, the sooner she'll be back on her feet. you'll know within a few days if the fluid and massage is making any difference. really, truly, she didn't seem to care. she was wanting to eat and drink within 15 minutes. i couldn't believe it. it was probably the best she'd felt in a long time. sigh, i miss her. bonniebe

 

[eastbaychicks]

I vote you do it soon... or cull. I have had to operate on two birds now. The first bird I waited to see what would happen then did surgery, by the time I did it she had lost so much weight she couldn't sustain her body weight or fight off infection. The second bird had her operation the day I discovered the impacted crop, and she is gaining weight and her scab is about to fall off any day now. I'm calling this a full recovery. I'd do it again in a heart beat if it meant I could save my bird. It is very traumatic for me to do, but I was heart broken when we lost our sweet little Honey. I just was too inexperienced to just go in and do it. Good luck! If you need more help, there are quite a few threads you can pull up with amazing directions and help. Search for impacted crop surgery and wound care.

 

[ninejw]

She is and has been pooping good. Crop is really inflated and gas filled. Gave 3rd crop massage this morning. The only solid material I feel now is a grainy amount the size of a golf ball the rest is air and fluid.

 

[daps2000]

Well ... lets do a little adding on this subject!

Yesterday morning ... my buff was acting weird when I went to let them out of the coop! She just didn't want to go out and eat ... When I went back later ... she was on the bottom of the coop ... and was very happy for me to pick her up. In the house we went ... set her up in a cage in my kitchen ... and percided to make her some antibitics and some vitamins stuff! WELL ... talk about a stink coming out of her little mouth! yuck! ... well by this time I really didn't pay too much attention to the stink! I've only had chickens for the last year or so ...! I didnt read the signs!

This morning I woke up to very happy hen ... and in her cage ... well just take a look ...

she was fine this morning ... so I put her back outside ... she seemed really happy to go ...

 

[eastbaychicks]

how on earth did that all come out of her...YUCK. She must feel so much better.