Impacted crop to ... doughy or squishy crop?

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Jan 25, 2020
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Manitoba, Canada
Hello Chicken Friends

I have a Brahma hen that I realized had an impacted crop. She had been drinking excessively and then I saw water come out of her beak. Her poop was liquidy. I read all the articles on crop issues on here and after feeling her crop, which was hard like a baseball, I gave her olive oil with a syringe and massaged her crop. It did go down some. (I have not had much experience feeling crops). I did this twice. I have to add that she has not acted sickly at all, except immediately after the first olive oil treatment, when she sat under a bench by herself, hunched up. I did let her have supper with her friends, as the hardness had gone down and she acted normal now. (Ground layer feed mixed with milk/water) The following morning her crop was not hard, but also not empty. It felt squishy. Her overnight poop was solid. She had to miss breakfast and I did the olive oil again and massaged. About 3 hours later I felt her crop again and I thought it had gone down. I made her mashed boiled egg with olive oil. She ate with gusto. Again, she acted fine all day. She got regular supper with the others. This morning her crop, again, was not empty. I compared it to several other crops. They were all flat, and hers was squishy, not baseball like. Instead of olive oil, I crushed up a Senokot pill (8.6 mg sennosides and 50 mg docusate sodium), mixed it with water and syringed half of it into her beak. I also checked her vent and abdomen. There didn’t seem to be an egg in there. I watched her and saw her drink several times. About an hour later, her crop felt flatter, and she got more egg with oil.
I realize that I did not follow the protocol of fasting her 24 hours or even seperating her. The reason for that is 1. that she has been acting normal throughout this whole time and 2. her and her 3 friends are still new here and I did not want to stress her out more than I had to.
I bought these 4 Brahmas as 2 year old adults in August of this year. They are very skittish and also have not started laying for me. I have 5 other chickens, that are obviously not nice to them. But these new ones have their own space, and they choose when they want to mingle with the others.
I have given them Verm-x regularly, 3 days in a row, every month.
I would like to see the crop emptying overnight.
Any advice would be great!
 
It's a bit tricky when you have several possible crop disorders going on. The dilemma is what to decide to treat first. I agree with @Wyorp Rock to treat for impacted crop first to try to open things up and get them moving. That will help when you finally are able to treat for yeast.

This seems logical to me if you consider which is more likely to kill the chicken first, impacted digestive tract or yeast.
 
It's a bit tricky when you have several possible crop disorders going on. The dilemma is what to decide to treat first. I agree with @Wyorp Rock to treat for impacted crop first to try to open things up and get them moving. That will help when you finally are able to treat for yeast.

This seems logical to me if you consider which is more likely to kill the chicken first, impacted digestive tract or yeast.
I'm pretty sure it's not an impacted crop. It isn't hard. Depending on what she's eaten, it varies from soft squidgy to dough squidgy.
Food and liquids are moving through her. She's pooped maybe a dozen times today.
I broke all the lockdown rules and went to the nearest town and bought live yogurt. She's had 100 ml and late this afternoon her poop had white urates showing and was more solid. Just not enough of it.
I'm begining to think there may be a gizzard problem.
 
Two days ago.
PB280164.JPG


This morning.
PB290191.JPG


Crop not nearly as full as it has been. I squidgy ball still there.
 
Since the end of her treatment (Coccivex for coccidiosis and Flubenol worming)
I've checked Fudge's crop every night and every morning since. She's eating like a horse, her crop is empty every morning and she looks a different hen.
Here she is. She just popped in for another fill up.
PC240309.JPG
 
The only dewormer I have here is ivermectin horse paste. I have no idea if that’s somthing one can give to a chicken.
but let's ask @casportpony how you dose a chicken with the paste form.
One can give ivermectin to a chicken, but it's not an effective poultry de-wormer. What ivermectin paste do you have?? let me know and I will calculate a dose.

I have not read your thread yet, so pardon me if you have already answered these questions.

  1. Is a vet an option?
  2. Have you been weighing her daily?
  3. Has she lost weight?
  4. When did she lay her last egg?
  5. Have you checked for mites and lice?
  6. Is she eating and drinking normally?
  7. Can you bring her into a warm room? (80-85 degrees f is ideal)
 
Apologies for crashing the thread. I didn't want to start a new thread while this one was active.
I have a hen called Fudge who is suffering from what is currently slow crop. She has developed this condition in the last three days. I know I'm about right with the time because her tribe got crop checked last weekend.
She has recently finished her moult during which she went off the commercial feed and ate mainly what she could forage. She's a free range hen.

Currently I'm worming her with Flubenvet and treating for possible coccidiosis with coccivex.
There is no odour from her throat.
She has always had a prominant crop which is prone to being pendulous once full.
Her posture when not aware she is being studied is similar to what one sees when a hen has coccidiosis.
She is quite a reserved hen normally but during the moult and since she is less inclined to mix with her tribe.
She will eat: I've been feeding her tinned cod in olive oil and walnuts and today I started giving her live yogurt.

The problem is not improving and I'm looking at the next options.
While I don't think she has full on sour crop yet; no vomiting of solids, or liquids even after being tube fed water, I want to nip this in the bud if possible.
I'm in Spain and many of the brand names are not availible here.
Monistat for example isn't availible here.
I haven't been able to find acidifeid copper sulphate yet.

The active ingredient in Monistat is Miconazole.
Will Fluconazole give the same result?
Any other suggestions for anti yeast treatment?
 
Apologies for crashing the thread. I didn't want to start a new thread while this one was active.
I have a hen called Fudge who is suffering from what is currently slow crop. She has developed this condition in the last three days. I know I'm about right with the time because her tribe got crop checked last weekend.
She has recently finished her moult during which she went off the commercial feed and ate mainly what she could forage. She's a free range hen.

Currently I'm worming her with Flubenvet and treating for possible coccidiosis with coccivex.
There is no odour from her throat.
She has always had a prominant crop which is prone to being pendulous once full.
Her posture when not aware she is being studied is similar to what one sees when a hen has coccidiosis.
She is quite a reserved hen normally but during the moult and since she is less inclined to mix with her tribe.
She will eat: I've been feeding her tinned cod in olive oil and walnuts and today I started giving her live yogurt.

The problem is not improving and I'm looking at the next options.
While I don't think she has full on sour crop yet; no vomiting of solids, or liquids even after being tube fed water, I want to nip this in the bud if possible.
I'm in Spain and many of the brand names are not availible here.
Monistat for example isn't availible here.
I haven't been able to find acidifeid copper sulphate yet.

The active ingredient in Monistat is Miconazole.
Will Fluconazole give the same result?
Any other suggestions for anti yeast treatment?
You should be able to use Fluconazole for sour crop. Dosing is in the link below.
A crop bra may speed up recovery time if it's pendulous too. Since she's free range, maybe place it on her at night? Just a thought on the bra.
Shad is/was she laying? I know she's coming out of molt, but every single hen I've had with a crop issue also had reproductive problems.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...in-nystatin-no-℞-needed.1258934/post-23502140
 
None of the hens are laying atm and haven't been for over a month. It's getting into winter here and they usually stop laying late October unless they were late season pullets.
I'm not exactly sure when she stopped laying this year.
She's an every other day layer when laying. She's four years old and hardly a high production hen given she lays around 130 eggs a year so reproductive tract problems are possible, but not on my first choice list atm.
This is what she looks like when fit. You can see that he crop is quite full and protrudes a bit more than usual.
View attachment 2428305

This is what she looks like now when alert.
View attachment 2428311

This is what she looks like when relaxed/not alert. This look is not the look of a well hen ime.
View attachment 2428312


I've not had to deal with slow, or sour crop before. I have dealt with impacted crop a couple of times, once with a dying hen with reproductive problems and once with a rescue hen that ate too much vegetation not being used to free ranging.
So, sorry about all the poop pics.
This was the hen with the reproductive tract problems with her family shortly before I had to put her out of her misery. She was between 11 and 12 years old.
It should be clear from the picture that she is the blond hen at the front of the group.
View attachment 2428315
This is what her poop looked like in the last couple of weeks of her life. The colours were a bit brighter than the camera shows, particularly the greens.
View attachment 2428316

These are pictures of Fudge's poop this morning.
View attachment 2428320
View attachment 2428321
View attachment 2428323



Yesterday there was a lot more water and less solids. The two middle pics are cecal poop mostly.
As I mentioned above I'm treating her with Flubenvet (Flubendazole) and Coccivex (Amprolium)
She's getting 0.2ml of coccivex which is about right for a hen weighing 1.63kg.
She's gettting 0.25 mg of Flubenvet which is a higher dose than usual. Flubenvet at higher dosages tends to give diarrhea which may be helpful here.
So, until the course of Flubenvet and Coccivex are finished (7 days) she needs to eat. If things haven't improved by then, I can then consider anti yeast treatment.
Apparently it is not wise to mix Flucanozole with the current meds.
I would take her to the vet but she's off with Covid.:(
Sounds like you are track of what I would do.
Only thing is I can get OTC Miconazole or Clotrimazole creams, so I do use those along with Amprolium and a dewormer (IF I think deworming is needed/Valbazen).

Since you need to wait on anti-yeast medication because of the other meds, I would be inclined to give a bit of coconut oil which may help with yeast.

I'm sure that Carol (@azygous ) will chime in soon too!
 

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