Impacted and/or Sour crop treatment

[azygous]

It's great you were able to get her in to see a vet. Actually seeing a chicken is 100% superior to trying to make guess over the internet.

You usually see improvement with an antibiotic within the first 24 to 48 hours. Be sure to give all the doses even if she appears to be better.

We old timers usually suspect a reproductive infection when we see yellow tinged poop. Yellow poop can also indicate liver malfunction. So if the antibiotic doesn't improve her symptoms, you could be looking at liver disease. Did the vet mention that?

 

[Winderdear]

It's great you were able to get her in to see a vet. Actually seeing a chicken is 100% superior to trying to make guess over the internet.

You usually see improvement with an antibiotic within the first 24 to 48 hours. Be sure to give all the doses even if she appears to be better.

We old timers usually suspect a reproductive infection when we see yellow tinged poop. Yellow poop can also indicate liver malfunction. So if the antibiotic doesn't improve her symptoms, you could be looking at liver disease. Did the vet mention that?

No, she did not mention that. I hope that isn’t the case.

 

[Winderdear]

So, I spoke with the vet over the phone. She believes it’s unlikely to be liver disease or toxicity damage to the liver. She says that green /yellow poop is common with bacterial infections, and based on what she’s been dealing with previously, that’s our best guess. The liver itself isn’t enlarged on the x-ray, so it isn’t fatty liver. She cannot rule out a liver infection, but the amoxicillin should fight that as well if that’s the case.

My theory, which has no basis in medical knowledge, is that she had a blockage somewhere lower down, we cleared it with papaya and digestive enzymes as well as stool softeners, and once that blockage was cleared, her weakened and imbalanced gut developed a secondary infection. I don’t think she has had an infection all this time, based on her behavior the past two weeks. She seems completely different now that she is dealing with a fever and these yucky sludgy poops (which of course I now have a picture of on my phone… )

She is still drinking a lot of water, though her appetite is suppressed and she won’t willingly eat anything. Overall, I think that’s to be expected. I don’t usually eat much when I have a fever either. When the amoxicillin knocks back the infection, her appetite should return. I plan to follow up the antibiotics with probiotics, assuming all goes well. Which it will. I have to keep telling myself it will.

 

[Winderdear]

She did well overnight, and is eating and drinking. She has better looking poops, more like what they were a few days ago. I believe her fever is gone, but she isn’t moving around a lot like she was before we had to take her to the vet. She can balance and stand just fine, but going up and down off of things seems to be difficult for her at the moment.

She had this one odd poop, and I was hoping you could give me your opinion on it @azygous or anyone else who is knowledgeable about such things.

She has had very watery poops all this time, even her cecal poop was full of water. This poop however was just a lump, which at first felt rubbery, but really it was more the consistency of half-dried paint, sort of stretchy. I initially thought it was a tiny bit of lash material, but it’s kind of like thickened urates maybe? Isn’t that odd with all these puddle poops she’s been giving us? In the past two weeks she’s never had anything like this.

 

[Winderdear]

@azygous

We performed the epsom salt flush you recommended for our hen, and the following droppings had a lot of yellow liquid. Is that normal? ChatGPT tells me it’s bile and that it’s an expected outcome of a flush, but I’d appreciate your opinion on it.

 

[Winderdear]

As for Juin’s health at the moment, she’s doing worlds better. We were scared yesterday because she was pooping water with a bit of solids every 25 minutes. We took her off eggs, put her back on dry feed, and gave her Hydro Hen in her water for a few hours, which has probiotics, electrolytes and acidifiers. We were worried about stressing her kidneys with too much protein from a two week egg-only diet. By nighttime she was having almost solid poops in a much smaller puddle of water, and less frequently.

Her crop is still not fully emptying, but she is certainly feeling much better. We’re hoping the epsom salt flush will be the final step toward recovery.

 

[Winderdear]

She’s healed! Her crop was 100% flat this morning! What a wonderful Christmas miracle!

Thank you @azygous for all your help! Merry Christmas!

 

[lizo97]

@azygous

I had to take her to the vet this morning. She was standing all puffed up with her tail down when I opened up the coop this morning. We drove 2 hours to a vet that sees birds, and on the way I thought she had a ruptured soft egg because she was pooping bright yellow liquid. The vet told us it is not egg, but nasty poop. She was 108°, so it’s certainly an infection.

We had an x-ray done, and the vet said it looks like her GI tract is inflamed. She put her on amoxicillin and meloxidyl, an antibiotic and an anti-inflammatory apparently.

Here are the x-rays:

View attachment 4267134
View attachment 4267135

She told me there was no blockage, and that her reproductive organs don’t look inflamed. I’m hoping the amoxicillin will help soon, but the vet said 24-48 hours before the fever will likely go down, assuming the meds work for her.

She is drinking well but not eating at the moment.

Was the vet an avian vet? I had a similar situation with my hen. Crop stasis. She lingered for so long, I felt so terrible for her. She wanted to live, but she didn't make it and my rehabber friend could not find anything wrong on necropsy.

 

[Winderdear]

Was the vet an avian vet? I had a similar situation with my hen. Crop stasis. She lingered for so long, I felt so terrible for her. She wanted to live, but she didn't make it and my rehabber friend could not find anything wrong on necropsy.

It was a vet who claims to treat exotics, but really birds are not her specialty. They did not have tubing small enough to do any sort of flush for her, nor could they perform any kind of surgery were it necessary. All they could do was x-ray her, take a fecal sample and give us antibiotics.

Juin (my hen), gradually got better after finishing her amoxicillin, with repeated doses of digestive enzymes and probiotics (3x daily), miconazole (2x daily) and switching back to grain from an all egg diet. We continued to give her papaya as well. It took her a little over a week to get better after that vet visit.

I’m so sorry your hen didn’t make it.