Impacted and Sour Crop...and Something Else?

[Mimi13]

I brought my 2.5 yo BR inside Thursday morning because she is in the hardest molt I’ve ever seen and it was pretty cold. She was shivering. Once I picked her up I realized she had an impacted crop. It’s sad I never noticed her crop when she was feathered out.

Anyway, I began doctoring the usual impacted and sour crop. I’ve been down this road before and with good help from the BYC experts everything turned out fine with my Speckled Sussex. Read here.

This time however things aren’t going quite as smoothly. Coconut oil, stool softener, miconazole cream, a molasses flush, and countless massages later, her crop is no longer hard and impacted feeling, it’s more like a giant, squishy ballon.

I thought today, day 3 of treatment, she was actually beginning to improve. I say that only because she had begun pooping, eating some grit and feed, egg yolk AND preening some.

Then this began happening.

She has done it about 20-25 times in the last 15-20 minutes. I noticed her first in her cage and got her out where she continued in my lap. Yep, that bare thing is her bulging, bulbous crop.
(

I tried to put a homemade crop bra on her, but she is literally a walking pin feather cushion right now and I’m afraid I’ll hurt her. (She kind of reminds me of an overly endowed, hillbilly woman with a crop shirt on and no bra. )

As you can see, she is a very sick girl, even though she does look better than she did.

This was her first poop after bringing her in, dry and hard.

This was her last poop today. Oily and STINKY.

Can anyone share with me what all might be going on with her? Right now she is walking around and picking up God only knows from my floor.

I do appreciate any and all advice.

@azygous
@WVduckchick
@casportpony
@Wyorp Rock
@Eggcessive
and others that I can’t think of.

 

[azygous]

Yes, she has every reason to be miserable, poor girl. You're doing all you can, and I suggest you keep it up. The neck action is simply indicating she's got a miserable crop condition that's bothering the daylights out of her.

She appears to be a pendulous crop victim. This is likely a chronic condition. You're right that it's extremely uncomfortable to wear a bra in her current. condition. Perhaps you can split the difference with her just wearing the bra at night to sleep.

During the day, try holding her and cupping her crop, raising it up a third of the way, and holding it there while you chat with her and give her love. Gently rock the crop to slightly move the contents up toward the drain, careful to keep the action low enough so the contents don't back up into her throat. If she starts gurgling, it's a signal you need to take it easier.

 

[Mimi13]

Yes, she has every reason to be miserable, poor girl. You're doing all you can, and I suggest you keep it up. The neck action is simply indicating she's got a miserable crop condition that's bothering the daylights out of her.

She appears to be a pendulous crop victim. This is likely a chronic condition. You're right that it's extremely uncomfortable to wear a bra in her current. condition. Perhaps you can split the difference with her just wearing the bra at night to sleep.

During the day, try holding her and cupping her crop, raising it up a third of the way, and holding it there while you chat with her and give her love. Gently rock the crop to slightly move the contents up toward the drain, careful to keep the action low enough so the contents don't back up into her throat. If she starts gurgling, it's a signal you need to take it easier.

Thank you, Carol! I try my best now to trust my own judgement on most things, but then sometimes I just can’t. She seemed to be getting better and then the neck action made me second guess myself.

I removed the roost in her little cage because, while she sits on it, her crop has room to really hang. As long as she is lying down, it seems to me her crop is pushed up more, possibly allowing it to drain somewhat. That’s my thought process anyway and I hope that’s actually what happens.

However, I’m still puzzled at the size and feel of her crop. At least it isn’t hard anymore, but it has grown in size and is terribly squishy. What could that be?

 

[azygous]

It may be due to yeast colonizing the crop or it could just be contents not moving down as they should. In case of the latter, it is a matter of time and they'll turn yeasty due to stasis.

You may be stuck with this high maintenance house guest for a while until you can get this under control somehow. We'll be around for support.

 

[Mimi13]

It may be due to yeast colonizing the crop or it could just be contents not moving down as they should. In case of the latter, it is a matter of time and they'll turn yeasty due to stasis.

You may be stuck with this high maintenance house guest for a while until you can get this under control somehow. We'll be around for support.

Oh boy, that’s what I’ve been worrying might happen. She’s not a good patient, but I won’t give up on her. She’s my Georgia Girl. We are GA Bulldog fans and when her comb first reddened up against her new black and white feathers, she reminded me of the Bulldogs!

She is also one of my best birds and has given me some of the best offspring. Such wonderful, pleasant birds, and two of them are my males, a 2 yo and an 8 mo.

 

[Mimi13]

Just an update on Georgia Girl.

First of all, her new feathers are coming in nicely. It’s been amazing to be able to actually watch the day by day “up close and personal” progress of them. Nature IS truly amazing.

Now, back to her ‘uni-boob crop’ issue — when I told her goodnight Saturday night, her crop still looked painfully huge, full and squishy. Sunday morning, I was shocked to find the crop had diminished to less than half its size overnight. A healthy crop would have been completely empty, but, hey, we’re working toward that. The squishiness was gone, just food and grit, what I ordinarily feel in a crop when feeling them at night...in a piggy bird!

All during the day yesterday, I continued to massage her crop. She was so much perkier that I took her outside for a dust bath and to also keep her in the minds of the rest of the birds. It didn’t take her long to find her spot and start flipping the dirt, even growling at some that got too close. She even was able to get several snips of grass before I took her back in.

She is still getting her twice daily half inch doses of miconizole and crop massages. Her last tube feedings of coconut oil and a molasses flush were Friday morning and then Friday afternoon.

All along since I brought her in on Thursday morning, she has had sporadic poops. But, at some point early Sunday morning her digestive system kicked in and started cleaning itself out. Very oily from the coconut oil and very stinky, the smell only a mother could love.

She still has three more days of the miconizole, which hopefully will turn this one time uni-boob into a normal chicken again. Georgia Girl is on her way.

 

[azygous]

She looks like she's feeling sassy!

 

[Mimi13]

She looks like she's feeling sassy!

When I wrote the prior post I had not gotten her out yet. She’s in my lap now and her crop has completely gone down, except for a little bit of food and water she drank just a bit ago.

I think she, along with my SS, will be a candidate for a crop bra. With just a tad bit of food/water in her crop and no feathers on her front, I can see that she has a low hanging crop.

She sees the other chickens out on the deck and coos at them with the occasional bawk-bawk. I believe it’s too chilly and windy to put her outside with them today. She’s gonna have to settle for sitting with me for now.

Thank you for being there, Carol. You and so many others here on BYC have been so vital to me as a conscientious and caring chicken owner. I love my birds and I’m thankful for you.

 

[Mimi13]

Funny story about Georgia Girl.

I let her out to “graze” with the chickens for a couple of hours this afternoon, while it was the warmest. As it was approaching roosting time I walked to the coop to intercept her and bring her in the house for the night.

What should have been a short trip to the coop and back turned out to be an all out search for a scraggly bird that was nowhere to be found. I could not find her anywhere. Checked both coops, all the nest boxes. No Georgia Girl anywhere.

On my way back to the house I saw this little pitiful looking bird standing on the dog house porch that is beside my back door. She was ready to go to roost...inside the house.

What in the world am I gonna do when she HAS to go back out?

I wanted to snap a picture of her on the porch, but as I got closer she hopped off the porch and headed toward me. Crazy bird!

That is a scrap built dog house I built for our frail 13 year old dog. But during the day it belongs to the chickens.

 

[Mimi13]

Hopefully one last question.

Georgia Girl still has extremely watery poop. The last coconut oil she had was Thursday night and the molasses flush on Friday at lunch. She has been eating her chicken feed and also a few scrambled eggs. What can I give her to start forming her poop? Maybe some electrolytes? Is there possibly a homemade recipe?

Thank you.

ETA: I’ve read where these electrolytes are bad for a “healthy” chicken. I wouldn’t necessarily call her a “sick” one, but her gut is obviously out of balance. What can I do to restore it? Also, could the miconizole possibly be causing the diarrhea?