Impacted crop, need help!

[chickenmomma16]

You sure do have the age spread there. Why not have both help?

You will wrap the wings and feet to confine them. An old Ace bandage can work or use Vetrap. Once the chicken is on their back, they usually relax and are calm. This involves very little pain, so you won't see much reaction during the procedure. Just assemble everything beforehand, prep your helpers to understand this isn't hurting the chicken much at all, so they won't be an issue you need to deal with. They will merely be there to hold the chicken steady and to hand you stuff.

Yep. Not ideal. My grandma is out. She’s afraid of the snow we got last night and won’t drive. I’ll figure something out. He just started mouth breathing so I doubt he’ll make it through this. He’s probably too far gone.

 

[azygous]

He's stressed. Don't attempt the surgery until he has had adequate fluids with electrolytes and sugar. This is crucial. It's no different than stabilizing an accident victim first brought into the ER. Once you see he's no longer mouth breathing, he is stable enough for surgery.

 

[chickenmomma16]

He's stressed. Don't attempt the surgery until he has had adequate fluids with electrolytes and sugar. This is crucial. It's no different than stabilizing an accident victim first brought into the ER. Once you see he's no longer mouth breathing, he is stable enough for surgery.

I think he got too warm.
Crop surgery is done. No big clog but lots of large grain pieces and a bit of grass and grit. I flushed it out till clean, felt every inch and followed the crop to gizzard tube as far as I could. Nothing. He’s quietly resting but won’t open his eyes. I did it as quick as I could and he didn’t fuss. Still not sure he will make it but I’ve done my best. Grandma stopped over and helped. I had issues with glueing him back together but it is what it is.

 

[chickenmomma16]

@azygous I get this feeling that it wasn’t his crop. What I got out shouldn’t have clogged him right? My gut tells me it is something deeper.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

You're doing all you can.

Hopefully this will make a difference.

 

[chickenmomma16]

So, an update for those following.

He passed away late last night. I opened him up this morning and looks like he died of cancer of his intestines. Everything looked okay all down until I got to the gizzard. There was grit but it looked like it was grinding up the same stuff. It was ground to a paste but nothing that should have blocked it. About a couple inches past his gizzard was HUGE. Then there was a marble sized growth and the intestines were empty after that.
Sorry for the gross necropsy picture. I was in a rush and there was gross water everywhere. Blue scribble is about where the growth was.
I feel so bad I practically tortured the poor thing. But thank you SO So so much @azygous and @Wyorp Rock for your time and knowledge dump on me. I will be so much more prepared in the future if something like this comes up again.

 

[BelovedBirds]

So, an update for those following.

He passed away late last night. I opened him up this morning and looks like he died of cancer of his intestines. Everything looked okay all down until I got to the gizzard. There was grit but it looked like it was grinding up the same stuff. It was ground to a paste but nothing that should have blocked it. About a couple inches past his gizzard was HUGE. Then there was a marble sized growth and the intestines were empty after that.
Sorry for the gross necropsy picture. I was in a rush and there was gross water everywhere. Blue scribble is about where the growth was.
I feel so bad I practically tortured the poor thing. But thank you SO So so much @azygous and @Wyorp Rock for your time and knowledge dump on me. I will be so much more prepared in the future if something like this comes up again.
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I'm sorry that he passed, you did all you could have
He's at peace now

 

[azygous]

Most crop disorders have an underlying cause. When we treat a crop disorder, we first do the basics. These are treating yeast and lubricating with oil to encourage things to move. The next step up is to try a flush. When the flush failed in your rooster's case, the last thing to try is crop surgery, but that can only target the crop, nothing beyond.

So when all if the treatments are tried and fail, the final conclusion is an obstruction, generally assumed to be a tumor(s). I'm glad you had the courage to do a necropsy to confirm this.

You gave it your best shot, and we did everything in the arsenal that we have. You need not feel badly about trying everything to save the rooster. In most cases, one of them usually works. In your rooster's case, there was always the chance that none of them would, but we can't know that until we tried them all. It's sad this ended this way. But thanks to your willingness to try surgery and your rooster being such an agreeable boy, he enabled you to learn a huge amount about treating crop disorders that will no doubt save the lives of future chickens in your care.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I'm sorry about your rooster.