Impacted crop

[enola]

You need to isolate the hen from her food. Leave water in with her. Isolating her will give you an idea exactly how much she is drinking. You will also be able to see if her crop empties over night. And you will see what her poop looks like.

 

[casportpony]

I can teach you how to safely tube fluids to her which might help if the impaction is from her not drinking enough.

-Kathy

 

[Michelle2639]

Kathy,
I've been keeping food from her. The only reason I mentioned the baby food was because that was in the article that TwoCrows wrote and it was just a bit to mix the dulcolax in. I do know not to give food while she's impacted.

 

[Michelle2639]

I'll post how she's doing in the morning and I will need some consultation on how to tube her if I have to. Thanks Kathy.

 

[TwoCrows]

You aren't going to feed her tomorrow. Water only. Cage her to keep her from eating anything. Get two Dulcolax tabs in her tomorrow morning. These you can put in food if you have to, but no other food. If you can tube water into her, do so. If not just let her drink water by herself. Massage her crop every hour for several mins each time.

Then in the afternoon give her two more tabs of Dulcolax. By morning the crop should be considerably smaller. Give her two more tabs. If the crop is smaller, keep her caged but give her only a very small amount of damp layer feed. Just enough to satisfy some hunger. You don't want her gorging on food yet. She won't starve to death on this low calorie diet for a couple days. If the crop is smaller yet by the end of tomorrow, give her two more tabs.

But the following morning, the crop should be empty. These tabs are the exact same thing as Crop Bound tablets.

After you get her crop clear try to come to some conclusion as why this happened in the first place. It may be something as simple as too much grass or stiff vegetation or she may have health issues such as intestinal worm impactions, water belly, internal laying, heart failure or she is dying. Check her for egg binding too. This can stop up a crop and intestines as well.

Keep us posted!

 

[TwoCrows]

Kathy,
I've been keeping food from her. The only reason I mentioned the baby food was because that was in the article that TwoCrows wrote and it was just a bit to mix the dulcolax in. I do know not to give food while she's impacted.

You can use a tiny bit of food to get the dulcolax in. You just don't want to let the bird gorge on food. You are only going to use a couple cc's to get the meds in.

 

[casportpony]

Kathy,
I've been keeping food from her. The only reason I mentioned the baby food was because that was in the article that TwoCrows wrote and it was just a bit to mix the dulcolax in. I do know not to give food while she's impacted.

If she'll eat it on her own that's probably fine.

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

Question... I read here that the crop binding pills are Colace, that's a stool softener. Ducolax I believe is a stimulant, not a softener... not sure how safe it is for chickens.

-Kathy

 

[Eggcessive]

Could I butt in and ask a question? I thought that crop bound capsules had colace in them, and I wasn't under the impression that it was dulcolax. Dulcolax is a heavy duty laxative, where colace is a stool softener.

 

[Eggcessive]

Sorry, but I was writing when Kathy was posting the same thing. Butting out now...