How to use Monistat ... PLEASE??

[MassChick]

I need help. I know there are a million threads on this and they all seem to be conflicting. I have a hen that has had sour/impacted/pendulous croup for months! I don't know which. She's really uncomfortable. I'm not okay with vomiting her. I have pulled food for the day and have her on probiotic water. I have Monistat on hand. It's the cream, the store brand. Is this the right stuff? Who has had success with this? I've also read it's toxic to birds??? What dosage? For how long? I don't want to kill her. Any other help would be appreciated!!!

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Having it go on for months without getting it resolved - it may be time to seek vet care.

I suggest you read article in it's entirety, then follow the course of treatment which is best for your situation.
http://www.backyardchickens.com/a/impacted-slow-and-sour-crops-prevention-and-treatments

 

[MassChick]

Having it go on for months without getting it resolved - it may be time to seek vet care.

I suggest you read article in it's entirety, then follow the course of treatment which is best for your situation.
http://www.backyardchickens.com/a/impacted-slow-and-sour-crops-prevention-and-treatments

I've read this. But the thing is, I haven't actually done anything up to this point. I honestly just thought she was fat! She's been acting totally fine but the past week she seems uncomfortable so I started doing some research. And I know it's her crop. I think it's sour because when I squeeze and massage it, it gurgles. But she doesn't smell funny.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Can you take her to a vet?

If you think that she is having crop issues then you need to address it soon.

 

[msyfoopoo]

I need help. I know there are a million threads on this and they all seem to be conflicting. I have a hen that has had sour/impacted/pendulous croup for months! I don't know which. She's really uncomfortable. I'm not okay with vomiting her. I have pulled food for the day and have her on probiotic water. I have Monistat on hand. It's the cream, the store brand. Is this the right stuff? Who has had success with this? I've also read it's toxic to birds??? What dosage? For how long? I don't want to kill her. Any other help would be appreciated!!!

I too struggle with all the "recommendations" out there. I use forums as a last resort, because people will write stuff that is not relevant, or comment when they have no experience, and wastes your time reading thru crap that is irrelevant and not helpful, which drowns out the real experienced folks. I will give you my experiences, take it or leave it. I don't want anyone to tell me I'm wrong, cause this is what has worked for me.

For Sour Crop: The crop is soft & mushy, and contents smell bad. Soupy-sour-stuff might run out of mouth if they bend over for a drink/food. Hen is lethargic. To Fix, after many trys of suggested "cures", I finally bought 3-day monistat generic at the drug store (3-day is a 3-day cure, 7-day is a 7 day cure). You can only find it in cream now. Give the hen 2ml of the cream via syringe, then some liquid via syringe to wash it down, then massage the crop so the meds get all mixed in with the slop in the crop. Try to keep hen hydrated (very small amts at a time), and feed very small amount of nutritious food (e.g. meal worms). I over fed/hydrated hen, and then hen gurgled cause it was backing up and reaching her windpipe, so keep amts small. After 3-day monistat treatment, she was almost back to normal.

For Impacted Crop: The crop is usually hard and not squishy. My hen was perky and continued to do chicken things. I have not had much of a bad smell from impacted crop. If you are in doubt if it is impacted, cage w/o food, and if the crop empties in a day or two and there is poo, all is working just fine. Every night my hens go to bed with huge crops, but they are empty by morning. My experience was with a hen who gorged on long grasses, then all that grass gets in one big tangled ball. My first bout with her, I ended up asking my vet to cut open crop and remove ball. My second & third bouts, I tried another treatment, and it took days to resolve. Here goes: Isolate in cage. NO FOOD, but offer water. Keep track of poops, how much, how often, just to give you an idea if things are moving thru. Give 2-3 tablespoons of wine to hen via eye dropper every 4 hours or so and lightly massage mass (e.g. I try to work my finger thru the mass) for first day. NEVER SQUEEZE the crop; it will just cause the mass to become tighter; your goal is to get it to loosen up the mass and the wine helps. So bare with me on the following steps. Close to the crop, there is a bone forming a V in the chest. Find it. That is the area the contents of the crop go into the gut. Continue to give wine as before and on day 2 on you will GENTLY massage a tiny piece (marble sized) off of the mass in the crop, and then gently push the tiny piece into the gut (right above that V bone) and hold it there until it doesn't come back out into the crop. Every time you give your hen wine massage crop contents to see if you can massage another small piece off and force it into gut. If you don't feed her, and she continues to poop, and the crop gets smaller and smaller, her gut is slowly processing the small pieces you are gently pushing down into her gut. Each massage session takes about an hour, and it takes over a week to get the mass completely thru the system. LESSON: I have stopped offering longer grasses to my hens!

Pendulous Crop: I have no experience with this issue, Sorry.

 

[MassChick]

I too struggle with all the "recommendations" out there. I use forums as a last resort, because people will write stuff that is not relevant, or comment when they have no experience, and wastes your time reading thru crap that is irrelevant and not helpful, which drowns out the real experienced folks. I will give you my experiences, take it or leave it. I don't want anyone to tell me I'm wrong, cause this is what has worked for me.

For Sour Crop: The crop is soft & mushy, and contents smell bad. Soupy-sour-stuff might run out of mouth if they bend over for a drink/food. Hen is lethargic. To Fix, after many trys of suggested "cures", I finally bought 3-day monistat generic at the drug store (3-day is a 3-day cure, 7-day is a 7 day cure). You can only find it in cream now. Give the hen 2ml of the cream via syringe, then some liquid via syringe to wash it down, then massage the crop so the meds get all mixed in with the slop in the crop. Try to keep hen hydrated (very small amts at a time), and feed very small amount of nutritious food (e.g. meal worms). I over fed/hydrated hen, and then hen gurgled cause it was backing up and reaching her windpipe, so keep amts small. After 3-day monistat treatment, she was almost back to normal.

For Impacted Crop: The crop is usually hard and not squishy. My hen was perky and continued to do chicken things. I have not had much of a bad smell from impacted crop. If you are in doubt if it is impacted, cage w/o food, and if the crop empties in a day or two and there is poo, all is working just fine. Every night my hens go to bed with huge crops, but they are empty by morning. My experience was with a hen who gorged on long grasses, then all that grass gets in one big tangled ball. My first bout with her, I ended up asking my vet to cut open crop and remove ball. My second & third bouts, I tried another treatment, and it took days to resolve. Here goes: Isolate in cage. NO FOOD, but offer water. Keep track of poops, how much, how often, just to give you an idea if things are moving thru. Give 2-3 tablespoons of wine to hen via eye dropper every 4 hours or so and lightly massage mass (e.g. I try to work my finger thru the mass) for first day. NEVER SQUEEZE the crop; it will just cause the mass to become tighter; your goal is to get it to loosen up the mass and the wine helps. So bare with me on the following steps. Close to the crop, there is a bone forming a V in the chest. Find it. That is the area the contents of the crop go into the gut. Continue to give wine as before and on day 2 on you will GENTLY massage a tiny piece (marble sized) off of the mass in the crop, and then gently push the tiny piece into the gut (right above that V bone) and hold it there until it doesn't come back out into the crop. Every time you give your hen wine massage crop contents to see if you can massage another small piece off and force it into gut. If you don't feed her, and she continues to poop, and the crop gets smaller and smaller, her gut is slowly processing the small pieces you are gently pushing down into her gut. Each massage session takes about an hour, and it takes over a week to get the mass completely thru the system. LESSON: I have stopped offering longer grasses to my hens!

Pendulous Crop: I have no experience with this issue, Sorry.

This is such amazing information! Thanks for your help. I will absolutely use this information. If you can help me with one other thing... trying to figure out if it's sour or impacted. She's literally been like this for MONTHS. Her crop is the size of a tennis ball, squishy, not hard. She's not smelly. She's eating fine. Does drink a lot. Not skinny. Poops good. But as of late...the past month or so is making the neck movements a lot. She was laying down the day before yesterday a little with her eyes closed. A little fluffed up. But yesterday back to walking around. I held food yesterday, gave olive oil and massage... which she seems to love!! Any idea which Problem you think she might have?

 

[21hens-incharge]

I would suggest a vet at this point as well.

 

[msyfoopoo]

This is such amazing information! Thanks for your help. I will absolutely use this information. If you can help me with one other thing... trying to figure out if it's sour or impacted. She's literally been like this for MONTHS. Her crop is the size of a tennis ball, squishy, not hard. She's not smelly. She's eating fine. Does drink a lot. Not skinny. Poops good. But as of late...the past month or so is making the neck movements a lot. She was laying down the day before yesterday a little with her eyes closed. A little fluffed up. But yesterday back to walking around. I held food yesterday, gave olive oil and massage... which she seems to love!! Any idea which Problem you think she might have?

If the crop is soft, I would focus on sour crop remedy. Isolate her today without food. Chickens can live several days without food (just like we can). The neck movements I believe are because of discomfort in the Esophagus. I think stuff in the crop is backing up into esophagus, causing them to do that neck movement thing. I've seen it in both impacted crop and sour crop. Start the monistat cream today, and follow directions as given to you in my previous comment. If she is pooping, things are moving thru and is a good thing. When the crop recedes, then slowly start back with normal feed. Keep eye on her to make sure the crop does not get squishy again. Might want to consider giving yogurt/oatmeal mixture (or wine) to improve good gut bacteria once she is better.

FYI - I have found that my broody hens get squishy crops. I'm not sure why, but it does not seem to affect them.

BTW, I've seen MANY people recommend oil as a cure for several digestive issues, and I've never have seen a change in my birds afterwards.

For Impacted Crop (which you don't have), The wine can be good for gut bacteria & improve digestion in humans, so why not birds? It also breaks down the lipid hydroperoxides of plant cells; "The antioxidants naturally found in wines attack those lipid hydroperoxides, helping to break them down." It is all too complicated for me to understand the details, but my friend heard them talking on NPR about it, and immediately called me and said to try it on my impacted crop bird. Bingo! It worked.

For those willing to figure out the details of why the wine treatment works for crop impaction:
http://www.wineintro.com/basics/health/digestion.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11171226

Keep me posted.

 

[MassChick]

If the crop is soft, I would focus on sour crop remedy. Isolate her today without food. Chickens can live several days without food (just like we can). The neck movements I believe are because of discomfort in the Esophagus. I think stuff in the crop is backing up into esophagus, causing them to do that neck movement thing. I've seen it in both impacted crop and sour crop. Start the monistat cream today, and follow directions as given to you in my previous comment. If she is pooping, things are moving thru and is a good thing. When the crop recedes, then slowly start back with normal feed. Keep eye on her to make sure the crop does not get squishy again. Might want to consider giving yogurt/oatmeal mixture (or wine) to improve good gut bacteria once she is better.

FYI - I have found that my broody hens get squishy crops. I'm not sure why, but it does not seem to affect them.

BTW, I've seen MANY people recommend oil as a cure for several digestive issues, and I've never have seen a change in my birds afterwards.

For Impacted Crop (which you don't have), The wine can be good for gut bacteria & improve digestion in humans, so why not birds? It also breaks down the lipid hydroperoxides of plant cells; "The antioxidants naturally found in wines attack those lipid hydroperoxides, helping to break them down." It is all too complicated for me to understand the details, but my friend heard them talking on NPR about it, and immediately called me and said to try it on my impacted crop bird. Bingo! It worked.

For those willing to figure out the details of why the wine treatment works for crop impaction:
http://www.wineintro.com/basics/health/digestion.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11171226

Keep me posted.

Hi I just wanted to let you know the latest. We figured out it was most likely doughy crop she was suffering from. She was getting worse and hadn't laid an egg in over a week. I could not see her suffering any longer. My vet was kind enough to put her down for me today.

 

[msyfoopoo]

Hi I just wanted to let you know the latest. We figured out it was most likely doughy crop she was suffering from. She was getting worse and hadn't laid an egg in over a week. I could not see her suffering any longer. My vet was kind enough to put her down for me today.

What is doughy crop?