Impacted Crop?

[Simple Chick]

Hope somebody is awake at this late hour...
I suspect that one of my chicks has an impacted crop. I've read info about mineral oil and massaging. Can I use vegetable oil? Olive oil? Thanks!

 

[robin416]

Before you put the chick through the process of the impacted crop routine tell us what you see. One of the best ways to know if you might be dealing with a crop problem is taking the food and water away over night and checking the crop in the morning. If you find that it is almost impossible to find then its more than likely not a crop problem.

There are other crop issues besides impacted, there is also sour crop which is completely different and is treated differently than impacted crop.

More information is better.

 

[Simple Chick]

I did not treat the chick last night. She has refused to eat since yesterday and is now very weak. Her crop does not feel hard, but this morning I can still feel it. She looks and feels swollen. She is significantly smaller than the others. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! The rest of the chicks look really good. She is the only one not doing well. Thank you for anything you can offer.

 

[Simple Chick]

As I do more reading, I wonder if my chick has a sour crop. Like I said, her crop looks and feels swollen and she is terribly weak. My husband and I just checked on her and noticed that her little bottom was kind of pasty so we cleaned her up and she immediately pooped in his hand! (So very funny!) It was pretty runny and stunk horribly!

Anyway, what I've read about sour crop so far is not encouraging. Thanks for anything you might have to offer. I'm afraid we're going to lose her. It's tought to just watch her suffer!

 

[Simple Chick]

Just thought I'd post an update-

I got in touch with a university emergency vet clinic. From my description, the vet felt that my chick does have a sour crop (or whatever the medical term is) and made the following recommendations:

- Isolate her from the rest of the brood and increase her temp to 95 - 98 degrees.
- Get her a few drops of water every couple of hours to try to prevent dehydration.

So, she's in the the house with us now under a heat lamp. She had a couple BM's and took a few drops of water. I just can't see that I will try to empty her crop. Surely I would do more damage than good. We'll do what we can to keep her comfortable.

This chicken thing is more emotionally draining than I expected!

 

[Simple Chick]

Bummer
In the time it took me to post my last message, we lost our first chick.
My first tough lesson as a novice chicken hobbiest.
23 others are looking healthy and active though!
Thanks for your replies to my qustions.

 

[65browneyes]

So sorry you lost your baby

. Hopefully things will go well with the remaining peeps. Keep us posted.