Impacted crop question

[Wyorp Rock]

Thinking about getting some baby’s food to mix with the stool softener. What type/flavor?

I don't see why you can't just pop the soft gel into her beak and let her swallow it.

If you feel you must mix it with something, then use wet feed.
I'm sure she's probably hungry by now.

 

[TX Chick Noob]

The only stool softener I could find isn’t really a “soft” gel. They are very hard, can barely even cut it open. So I worry it wouldn’t open up in her crop to get the medicine into her.

Yes she is hungry. Fed her a tablespoon of the baby’s food mixed with a few tablespoons of water because I am worried she isn’t drinking enough. She slurped that down and also a little bit of mash made from her regular food. Will see if she wants some scrambled egg and a little more mash in the morning.

 

[TX Chick Noob]

Update: Well after 5 days of treating with coconut oil, stool softener, and frequent massages we didn’t seem to be making any progress. I had found a vet clinic fairly close with a few vets that treat chickens so I took her in yesterday. After an exam, ultrasound to see if they could tell what was in there, and some discussion of options we decided to go ahead and do crop surgery. They did use anesthesia, which I was a little nervous about, but he assured me they had historically had very good results for the short amount of time she would be under.

I wish I had thought to take a picture of what they took out. It was a wad of the old dried out hay we had in the nest boxes. So that all got removed and replaced with shavings yesterday. And they only charged me a little over $100, that was a pleasant surprise.

She seems to be doing well today, definitely a little perkier. Her crop does have a small, hard lump but I think it is just swelling from the incisions. Is that normal? I have been spraying the incision with Vetericyn. Anything else I should be doing/watching for?

He did tell me one other treatment that I hadn’t seen before so wanted to share it. He said if you suspect they have a lot of grass or something similar/fibrous that you can give them papaya juice (or pineapple if you can’t find papaya), because the papain in it helps break down things. That is the active ingredient in meat tenderizer. If I had known that and started it from the beginning we might not had progressed to needing surgery.

@azygous @Eggcessive @Wyorp Rock @casportpony

 

[azygous]

Thanks for the informative update. Glad you were able to find a vet that knew what they were doing and did it well. I am assuming this vet is in a small rural community. A vet in a larger, more urban area would have forced you to mortgage your home and sell your first born to pay the surgical fees.

I had never heard of papaya to help soften an impaction in the crop. But I have doubts it would have done much against such a wad of straw which is undigestible.

You did the right thing to agree to surgery. She only needs a week on soft foods and she should be good to go.

 

[TX Chick Noob]

He agreed that even the papaya would have had difficulty with this straw. We discussed the papaya before we knew for sure what was in there. He offered it as an option to try if we wanted to wait a little longer before doing surgery. But I am glad we went ahead with it.

The vet is in Salado, TX. It is a small town not only about 45 minutes North of Austin and an hour south of Waco. He said since it was such a minor procedure and didn’t require as much prep as surgery on something like a dog or cat that he tries to keep cost for things like this as low as possible.

 

[azygous]

On top of the modest fee, you're even luckier he would consent to seeing a chicken, let alone treating her. Vets like that are as rare as hens teeth.

 

[TX Chick Noob]

They supposedly have three vets who treat chickens.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I'm glad you were able to see the vet and he was able to remove the wad of straw from the crop.
I hope your hen quickly heals and makes a full recovery!

Thank you for the update and info about the Pineapple and Papaya, never heard of that, but will tuck that away in my files.
Let us know how she gets along.