Laying hen with impacted/sour crop + diarrhea

[HippyChic96]

Hi there,
I am brand new to chickens and inherited 5 laying hens with my new property. Things have been going well the past six months but now one of my chickens is ill and I'm not sure what caused it.
- I do not know if she has been laying nor when her last lay was
- Yesterday she seemed a little lethargic and today she barely left the coop before falling asleep standing up
- Her comb seems healthy
- She is a free-range chicken
- She's had diarrhea for about a week
- Her gut is making a lot of noise, kind of sounds like when a human has ibs or trouble digesting something
- Her crop was SUPER full this morning. Not sure how long she's had this issue, just learned how to do crop checks today.
- I got her to vomit up a bit of brown smelly puke, making me think that whatever is in her crop may have been sitting there a couple days leading to an impacted AND sour crop
- After making her vomit what I could, there still seems to be a large dense mass in her crop, so I would say impacted for sure.
- I have not dewormed her, nor will I be able to until the medication arrives in about a week.
- She does not have water belly

I've given her mineral oil, and a bowl of water mixed with apple cider vinegar. She's in my spare room next to a space heater. I plan to give her mineral oil twice a day until the crop clears out. If it's a worm issue I won't be able to treat it for a while.

My questions are: Have I taken the right steps? Is there more I should be doing? If it isn't worms, what else causes this type of issue? If it is worms will she survive until I receive the treatment?

 

[HippyChic96]

Here are some photos for reference

 

[Eggcessive]

I have had a few hens with sour crop, probably from an earlier impacted crop that went sour, and most of them had another primary problem such as cancer, internal laying, ascites, salpingitis (lash eggs,) or egg yolk peritonitis. Those were found at necropsy after they died. Mineral oil might help to stimulate the material to move on, but she probably needs an antifungal medication such as Medistatin (nystatin,) and some use antifungal creams (monistat/miconazole or clotrimazole/lotrimin,) given orally. Here are some articles on crop disorders:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...w-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...ntion-and-treatments-of-crop-disorders.67194/

 

[HippyChic96]

Thank you so much for your help! Yes I've just given her some monistat to treat the possible yeast infection. I massaged her crop and was able to get half of it down, and there don't seem to be any more solid masses. Will try to massage the rest down as the day goes on, and hope that her crop empties before night.
If she recovers I'll keep a close eye to see if other symptoms develop that could point towards the cause of this. Hope it's nothing too serious, she's my favorite one!

 

[onesweetflock]

I'm dealing with something similar for the past few days, have you had any luck with what you tried? Please, lemme know! Best wishes for you and your hens~

 

[HippyChic96]

I'm dealing with something similar for the past few days, have you had any luck with what you tried? Please, lemme know! Best wishes for you and your hens~

I'm so sorry to hear your chicken is ill also.
Unfortunately not that much progress. She's waking up with a sour crop every other day, but she seems to be eating and active. Not sure the medication is doing a bang-up job, so I may continue giving the yeast infection medication at a higher dose for a while.

 

[onesweetflock]

I'm so sorry to hear your chicken is ill also.
Unfortunately not that much progress. She's waking up with a sour crop every other day, but she seems to be eating and active. Not sure the medication is doing a bang-up job, so I may continue giving the yeast infection medication at a higher dose for a while.

I'm sorry for your hen too, this process definitely ain't fun! We're at day 2 for my girl, and from what I've read, it typically takes a week for a yeast infection to get gone, so keep after it! Thanks very much for keeping me posted, hopefully we'll both get thru this soon enough!