Hello, my beautiful Buff Orpington, Emerald, has a seemingly impacted gizzard! She has been very lethargic. What type of yogurt did you use in the mash you gave your Ethel?I'm not sure where to best post this but really wanted to get this information out in case a someone has a similar problem.
In late October I posted on this forum asking for help with my Ameracauna pullet who was in very bad shape and had been diagnosed by a local avian vet as having an impacted gizzard. I found very little on this forum or anywhere else, so I am guessing this is not a very common problem. The vet made the diagnosis based on an x-ray which showed a mass of what "read" as mineral in her gizzard. The vet concluded that she had over-eaten oyster shell or grit. She is the lowest on the pecking order and had apparently been bullied away from the food. Hungry she had apparently filled up on oyster shell, the only thing readily available. Ethel, my hen, was extremely ill - not moving much, drooping tail, barely eating or drinking, very few, tiny poops. The vet kept her overnight, filled her crop by tube feeding (showed me how to do it) and started her on regimen of 1 oz of metoclopramide once a day until she regained her appetite. The metoclopramide encourages appetite, and essentially keeps things moving through the intestinal tract. Vet also told me to remove oyster shell form her coop. The vet said Ethel was "talking" to everyone in the office (a good sign) and had even eaten a few little pretzels. During the next two days I kept her in a separate crate, inside, where I could monitor her food/water intake and she could rest and conserve her energy. I was a little nervous about tube feeding, so instead tried to hand feed her yogurt mixed with olive oil and soft bread which I mixed in the blender, and used a needle-less syringe to give her water several times a day. Doing this is tricky, you must be careful to put it in the side of beak and give them a chance to swallow. Must be careful not to put food or water into windpipe. I found directions for doing this on this forum. After a few days she began to eat a little more, and we moved to soft scrambled egg for protein, and a little cooked irish oatmeal, and of course the essential yogurt mixed with olive oil. Once she began pooping a little more and a little more often I decided to put her back out with the other girls to improve her morale. By the fourth day I could get her to eat regular feed again, mixed with water to keep it soft and to make sure she was staying hydrated. She began to move about and eat on her own after 6 days, though I often stopped her during her free range time with a dish of food. Reminded me of following my toddlers around to encourage "grazing"! By day 8 she was eating grass again and pooping regularly. She had by now passed a good bit of the excess grit. Getting her to eat and drink regularly were essential in order to pass that excess grit through her system. I also feel that the olive oil and yogurt helped the gastrointestinal process, and she liked them too! We did have one other problem after the fact: She had become so seriously malnourished during the impaction that 2 weeks after she recovered, her beak became brittle and began to deteriorate. (Shows how close we came to losing her!) I became very alarmed and was afraid she would lose her beak entirely. I read somewhere that cod liver oil in 1/2 tsp supplement could help with beak regrowth and began to give a little every other day in their feed. Though she had lost almost half her beak, the beak completely regrew in 2 months. She is now totally recovered, has been laying every day, and is her sweet, flighty little self again.
Lessons learned: I now keep several different feeding dishes in the coop so she always has a alternative if chased away, and watch to make sure she is eating her fair share. Be careful with oyster shell - I use ground up egg shells instead. Chickens' beaks can grow back. There is such a thing as gizzard impaction and it can be treated. Praying for chickens is not stupid and God loves them too)
