Impacted crop now worm eggs in poop!?

[m00res]

I have a hen that I isolated yesterday due to weight loss. Her energy is great and her comb is bright red, but her breast bone is now quite prominant. Her feathers are dull, but she was molting when I got her. She is a rescue from a production facility so I assume she is at least two years old. She free ranges all day and is given organic pellets mixed with scratch. I've had her 3 months or so and never wormed her. (I just found out that I need to do that.)

When I checked her out, I realized that her crop was impacted so I removed the chicken feed and spent the evening massaging it. My plan was to get mineral oil in the morning, but I think she passed it all. Her crop was empty and her poop looked someone dragged in grassy mud.

Since I'm really worried about the weight loss, I gave her cottage cheese with some probiotics. Also, I put Apple cider vinegar in the water in case she actually has sour crop, too. I figured it couldn't hurt. I then gave her some oatmeal with caynne peppar (for possible parasites).

She passed two foamy poops (parasites I read), but I thought it might have just been becuase I withheld food. Finally, she passed "normal" poop but it is laced with eggs about the size of sesame seed. EWWWW!! I have not seen any actual parasites and I looked very carfully in the "grassy" poop.

We're leaving town for the holidays and I'm trying to get her stable with some more weight on her bones before I go. Even though her energy is good, I'm really worried about her.

1) What can I feed her to put on the most weight in a short amount of time without risking reimpacting the crop?

2) What wormer do you think I should use if she is passing parasite eggs? (ie. what parasite is this?) I know each wormer only works for specific worms and I want to get right since I'm going to be gone.

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to give you all the most amount of information.

I am so grateful for this website because I wouldn't have known that she was underweight, or that her crop was impacted or even to look for worms. I feel like too much time has passed already, but I probably would have completly missed it until it was too late.

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[silkiechicken]

You can feed hard boiled eggs for quick energy and lots of vitamins. Cut out the scratch and perhaps a chick grower may be better with protein content.

As for parasites. Any vet should be able to do a fecal float test and identify the types of parasites your bird may have. Based on what they find, you can treat accordingly. I've never wormed my flock in 10+ years, so it's not a requirement, but if results come back positive, it would be best to treat. Worming is rather harsh on the internals. Cocci is another possibility with weight loss, but if her crop was impacted, that is probably the primary cause. If the "eggs" were sesame seeds... I don't think they were eggs. I can't think of any parasite eggs you can see without a microscope.

 

[m00res]

I'll contact the vet for a float test. The last visit cost me $80 so I was hoping I could go without. However, I don't want to risk it since we'll be gone. Thanks for the advice, SilkieChicken.

I can't imagine what else the "egg" things were since she hadn't eaten anything but cottage cheese and oatmeal for 24 hours. They are actually about the size of poppy seeds and clear. Yuck! Who knows with these critters.

I will feed her the egg as you suggested and get some chick grower. Thank you, again!

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By the way, this is the only place in the UNIVERSE that I would admit that I studied my chickens poop...don't tell my non-chicken friends, ok?

 

[silkiechicken]

Don't worry, our lips are sealed!

Good luck with your hen. I sure hope the fecal float won't be 80 bucks! Should be able to just drop off a sample and get a definitive answer of what's gong on.

 

[mypicklebird]

Tapeworms. Chickens get them too. From eating beetles. They look like rice or cous cous. If you are *lucky* enough to see the poop fresh from the chicken- they will even be moving a bit. A fecal float at the vet's will not in general pick up tapeworm egg packets (that is what they are- a packet of eggs), they don't float well. If you want them professionally ID'd bring a fecal WITH the sesame seeds on it, have the float done to ID all of the other parasites that might be there, but have the vet do a direct squash prep of the sesame seed to see the tapeworm eggs inside. Or they may just look with the eyeball and say YEP, tapeworms. Same with dog and cat fecals- the tapeworm eggs are ID's usually stuck on the outside of the feces or directly on the bottom of the patient. Fecal float finds the round worm, whip worm, hook worm ect eggs. Maybe a tapeworm egg or two if the packet got ripped open in the fecal float preparation.

More than you wanted to know about fecal floats...

Standard poultry dewormers- (pyrantel, piperazine, ivermectin ect) do NOT kill tapeworms.

Ask the vet about praziquantel, but be prepared to hear about off label drugs in poultry and not eating the eggs.