Impact or Sour crop or both?

[BrinellP]

Soft and squishy but slightly puttyish is how mine felt before surgery, so that when you squeezed it, it would retain some of it's squeezed shape until you squeezed it again in a different direction, like very soft putty. Essentially it was a mass of soggy straw with some soil/sand debris amongst it. What I will say is that I left it too long to do surgery the second time and whilst the surgery was successful, she had become to weak to recover. There is a point at which they lose too much weight and the body shuts down, so if you feel that surgery is going to be necessary, don't put it off too long.
I documented my surgery in another thread on necropsies.... I will try to find it and post a link. I'm afraid I didn't have enough hands to take photos during surgery.... it is fiddly enough just getting it done, but some of my observations might be helpful. I have no medical background but have butchered a few excess cockerels and done a few DIY necropsies, which helps as it gives you a basic knowledge of their anatomy, but it's not essential. If you can find a friend or relative to help you, who is in the medical profession, that may be beneficial.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...ns-xxx-graphic-necropsy-photos.823961/page-33

Post No 330 onwards. Beware that link contains some pretty graphic photos

I really appreciate you taking the time to find your post and sharing. Here's part of my dilemma. I think I could do the surgery. Never done anything like it and these are my first chickens but I'm not sure what to with her after. Unfortunately my husband has a camping trip planned and we leave Thursday come back Sunday. His first vacation in two years. I really couldn't push him not to go. we have family coming to meet us there. So not going wouldn't be an option. Would she be ok to put back out after a couple of days? Doesn't really seem like it to me. And what would I feed her after the surgery? I'm tempted to let her out with the others this morning. She keeps trying to eat with them. At this point I pretty sure it's the surgery or put her down.
If I did the surgery tonight, would the incision be healed enough to put her in the hen, which has a sand floor, in a separate kennel from the others? Only problem is I have pellets. Could I leave crumble out for her?
I'm really trying to figure out how to do this. Thanks everyone for baring with me. Who knew chickens could be emotionally taxing.

 

[rebrascora]

I can see you are in rather a difficult situation but if it is surgery or euthanize then to my mind, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. I can tell you, the euphoria of successful surgery lasts for months! (Medical surgeons must be on a permanent high!) The trauma and sadness of culling a bird lasts days/weeks.

If you can do the surgery tonight and isolate her in a kennel in with the others and give her crumbles whilst you are away, she has a good chance but you will know best after you have done the surgery. If she is up and eating as fast as my Vippy, you will know. Vips would have been back out with the others straight away if it hadn't been that she aspirated. I was pretty sure she would get pneumonia and die for the first few days, and I didn't do anything other than give her food and water because her breathing was so bad I didn't want to handle her, so I didn't dress her wound at all after I packed it with Germolene following surgery. It was just left open to the air. Providing the other chickens can't peck at it, I would say that she should be fine but you could spray it with Blue Kote which also has an anti bacterial action to cover the redness.
Please let us know how you get on. Good luck. Whatever decision you make will be the right one, so do whatever you feel is right.

 

[BrinellP]

I can see you are in rather a difficult situation but if it is surgery or euthanize then to my mind, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. I can tell you, the euphoria of successful surgery lasts for months! (Medical surgeons must be on a permanent high!) The trauma and sadness of culling a bird lasts days/weeks.

If you can do the surgery tonight and isolate her in a kennel in with the others and give her crumbles whilst you are away, she has a good chance but you will know best after you have done the surgery. If she is up and eating as fast as my Vippy, you will know. Vips would have been back out with the others straight away if it hadn't been that she aspirated. I was pretty sure she would get pneumonia and die for the first few days, and I didn't do anything other than give her food and water because her breathing was so bad I didn't want to handle her, so I didn't dress her wound at all after I packed it with Germolene following surgery. It was just left open to the air. Providing the other chickens can't peck at it, I would say that she should be fine but you could spray it with Blue Kote which also has an anti bacterial action to cover the redness.
Please let us know how you get on. Good luck. Whatever decision you make will be the right one, so do whatever you feel is right.

You are so generous in sharing your story with me. Thank you very much. I'm starting to think maybe I could really do this.

When I picked her this morning her bump was about the same size but a little softer. For a second I let myself think that maybe it would work through her system. But I can't imagine it would make it. It's probably just all the water I've been giving her.

How long can chickens live with an impacted crop? She is drinking on her own and I was watching her eat with the others. (I figured if she would eat then she'd have calories to survive this. I've had her separated since Wednesday and she hasn't really ate). I was tossing around the idea that if she would eat and drink maybe she could survive until I got back Sunday. Then I could take care of her all the way through.

I guess I'm feeling like no matter what I do I'm gambling with her life. Next chickens get no names! I just get to attached to the dang things.lol

 

[rebrascora]

How thin does she feel? Usually these things have been going on for quite a while before we notice them.... chickens are very good at hiding illness. The problem is that the impaction, even only partial like this means that not enough food is going through her system to sustain her, so she lives partly off the food and partly off her body reserves. Once her body reserves get too low her system will start to shut down..... this happened with my second surgery attempt. I left it too late and she was not strong enough to recover from the surgery. She was literally bones, skin and feathers..... totally emaciated but with a big fat crop. If your girl has already lost a good bit of condition, I would not delay. The problem is that it is a week between now and you getting back to do the surgery and the impaction could get significantly worse when there is no one to massage her every day.
If you are going to do the surgery, I would therefore probably advise that you do it now. I understand how scary it is and the more you give them 1:1 care when they become sick, the closer you get to them. I have one at the moment that I really should euthanize. She has a number of health issues and I keep putting off the sad and unpleasant "task" in the hope she will make a miraculous recovery. I am fooling myself because I don't want to deal with the reality. Since I am advising you to bite the bullet and do something you really don't feel comfortable doing, I need to suck it up and do what needs to be done with mine.... wish I could swap you..... I'd rather do crop surgery with a chance of success than pull a neck and know that it is the end. It's so much less difficult to kill a cocky young rooster in the prime of life than a frail, poorly pullet that I have lavished TLC on for weeks.

 

[BrinellP]

I'm really sorry to hear about your chicken. It's just so hard to decide when the time has come. Obviously I can't do it.
I hadn't even thought about that. I have been massaging her crop five to six times a day and giving her fluids each time. I guess she would go down pretty quickly if I'm not here.
I'm going to write down my list. Can I get all my supplies at a farm animal supply? The antibiotic you put in. Is that available here or is there something similar I could get?

 

[rebrascora]

I didn't use an antibiotic, just a human antiseptic cream....we can't get antibiotics without a script here in the UK. I believe you have triple antibiotic ointment that might be good or any antiseptic cream/ointment.

I will list all the things I used which should help you.

I performed the surgery on a metal tray lined with incontinence/puppy pads.... it gets a bit messy when you are flushing the crop out, so the pads and tray help to contain it.
Plastic or surgical gloves.... washing up gloves at a push!
Scissors to clip the feathers close to the skin at the incision point....plucking is better as the feathers grow back faster but I couldn't bring myself to put her through that as well as the surgery.
Scalpel..... for incision, which only needs to be about half to three quarters of an inch long..... nearer the top of the crop.
Tweezers for teasing out the mass of fibrous material. These items were all soaked in Chlorohexidine (Hibiscrub) to sanitize, but iodine solution would do.

A head torch is a really useful item to direct light to where you need it.

A large syringe with no needle and some sterile saline.... I just boiled the kettle and poured it into a jam jar with a teaspoon of sea salt in it..... it's best if it is still warm when you use it but obviously not too hot.

I found that a wad of paper towels and cotton make up pads were helpful to swab the blood from the initial incision (don't worry it does stop and looks a lot worse than it is) and absorb the worst of the moisture from the incision before blotting dry and then applying the....
Glue...... regular super glue ... the one I used is Loctite branded.... I don't know what you have available in the US.

A warm towel or covered heating pad to put her onto after surgery as she will be damp and rather gunky.

Maybe a sterilized sewing needle and thread or dental floss in case the super glue doesn't work, and do individual stitches and tie off rather than a running stitch, but I'm pretty confident that wont be necessary and the super glue will work fine as long as you blot the surfaces.

The most scary part is the incision. The most fiddly part is isolating the edges of the incision and blotting them and gluing them. You only need a tiny drop of glue. The edges of the crop are a whiteish colour which makes them easier to locate once you realise that.


I would ensure that most of the fluid in her crop has been massaged out (either down or up) before you start to prevent her refluxing and aspirating like Vippy did. There were numerous times throughout the surgery when she was very lifeless and I thought she had died.... try not to worry if that happens to you, just keep going and make the most of it. Far easier to operate on her when she is like that than struggling. If she has died there is nothing you can do about it, but if she is just unresponsive, you want to get finished before she comes to, so just keep going. I'm sure it will all go very well. Work slowly and steadily and make sure you get it all removed. I got what I thought was most of it out and was about to close up when I caught sight of a bit more that turned out to be another golf ball sized wad of fibrous gunk, so irrigate it well in and out of the incision hole and massage gently with the saline in there to ensure you get it all.

Think that is all the tips I can give you.

Best of luck

Barbara

 

[BrinellP]

I didn't use an antibiotic, just a human antiseptic cream....we can't get antibiotics without a script here in the UK. I believe you have triple antibiotic ointment that might be good or any antiseptic cream/ointment.

I will list all the things I used which should help you.

I performed the surgery on a metal tray lined with incontinence/puppy pads.... it gets a bit messy when you are flushing the crop out, so the pads and tray help to contain it.
Plastic or surgical gloves.... washing up gloves at a push!
Scissors to clip the feathers close to the skin at the incision point....plucking is better as the feathers grow back faster but I couldn't bring myself to put her through that as well as the surgery.
Scalpel..... for incision, which only needs to be about half to three quarters of an inch long..... nearer the top of the crop.
Tweezers for teasing out the mass of fibrous material. These items were all soaked in Chlorohexidine (Hibiscrub) to sanitize, but iodine solution would do.

A head torch is a really useful item to direct light to where you need it.

A large syringe with no needle and some sterile saline.... I just boiled the kettle and poured it into a jam jar with a teaspoon of sea salt in it..... it's best if it is still warm when you use it but obviously not too hot.

I found that a wad of paper towels and cotton make up pads were helpful to swab the blood from the initial incision (don't worry it does stop and looks a lot worse than it is) and absorb the worst of the moisture from the incision before blotting dry and then applying the....
Glue...... regular super glue ... the one I used is Loctite branded.... I don't know what you have available in the US.

A warm towel or covered heating pad to put her onto after surgery as she will be damp and rather gunky.

Maybe a sterilized sewing needle and thread or dental floss in case the super glue doesn't work, and do individual stitches and tie off rather than a running stitch, but I'm pretty confident that wont be necessary and the super glue will work fine as long as you blot the surfaces.

The most scary part is the incision. The most fiddly part is isolating the edges of the incision and blotting them and gluing them. You only need a tiny drop of glue. The edges of the crop are a whiteish colour which makes them easier to locate once you realise that.


I would ensure that most of the fluid in her crop has been massaged out (either down or up) before you start to prevent her refluxing and aspirating like Vippy did. There were numerous times throughout the surgery when she was very lifeless and I thought she had died.... try not to worry if that happens to you, just keep going and make the most of it. Far easier to operate on her when she is like that than struggling. If she has died there is nothing you can do about it, but if she is just unresponsive, you want to get finished before she comes to, so just keep going. I'm sure it will all go very well. Work slowly and steadily and make sure you get it all removed. I got what I thought was most of it out and was about to close up when I caught sight of a bit more that turned out to be another golf ball sized wad of fibrous gunk, so irrigate it well in and out of the incision hole and massage gently with the saline in there to ensure you get it all.

Think that is all the tips I can give you.

Best of luck

Barbara

Thank you!

God willing, we'll both make it through.

I have probiotics for her water but I'm not sure what to feed her in the day or so. And when do I start offering her food? Will betadine work to sterilize the tools and her? Or I have rubbing alcohol to sterilize the tools? And for the salt water, one teaspoon per quart?

 

[rebrascora]

Sorry for delayed reply. I've had a busy morning and just logged in to get an update.
If you haven't gone ahead and done the surgery, Betadine will be fine.
A soft mash of her pellets soaked in plenty of warm water with a bit of scrambled egg and or yoghurt mixed in. If she won't eat that, try some bread or cake soaked in warm water to get her started, or just scrambled egg....whatever she will eat that is soft and soggy.
For the saline, a teaspoon in a pint or half a teaspn in a cup will be fine. It's really not that critical. Table salt is OK but sea salt is better.

 

[biophiliac]

Thank you!

God willing, we'll both make it through.

I have probiotics for her water but I'm not sure what to feed her in the day or so. And when do I start offering her food? Will betadine work to sterilize the tools and her? Or I have rubbing alcohol to sterilize the tools? And for the salt water, one teaspoon per quart?

Sorry for delayed reply. I've had a busy morning and just logged in to get an update.
If you haven't gone ahead and done the surgery, Betadine will be fine.
A soft mash of her pellets soaked in plenty of warm water with a bit of scrambled egg and or yoghurt mixed in. If she won't eat that, try some bread or cake soaked in warm water to get her started, or just scrambled egg....whatever she will eat that is soft and soggy.
For the saline, a teaspoon in a pint or half a teaspn in a cup will be fine. It's really not that critical. Table salt is OK but sea salt is better.

I'm thinking we need to gather up your posts on this and edit them into an article. Your experience and ability to communicate that experience in writing is priceless!

 

[rebrascora]

@biophiliac
Thanks for your kind comment. I do take a lot of time and effort to write my posts in as clear and concise a form as possible and I think back through the process and my thoughts and feelings as I write, to cover all the things I would have liked to have known in advance, in the hope it will make others experience less daunting.
I have been prompted to write an article about it before but never got around to it and the You Tube videos on the subject give a far better idea of the process. My contribution is just a bit of fine tuning and encouragement based on my own experience. I really don't feel like I can take much credit, as the people who make those You Tube videos are the real heroes and I doubt I would have attempted the surgery myself without those.
It would probably save me a bit of time in the long run to do an article but I do also think that it helps to tailor thoughts and advice to a persons specific situation.