Molting hen with crop issues

[Winchikn]

No real change today. She's only managing to move fluids through and her crop seems more impacted than ever. It was so full this evening (more solids/doughy consistency than fluids) that we couldn't get the flush in without causing what seemed to be a lot of discomfort, and we didn't want to risk aspiration.

We'll try another flush in the morning but I'm going to let her run with the flock as I think her days are limited and she'll be much happier chasing bugs in the run than in her crate beside the run. I'm not sure if I should try to get some Safeguard into her tomorrow or if that would just be adding insult to injury.

The interventions are hard, especially when they aren't helping, but coming to the end of them is harder...

 

[Wyorp Rock]

How was her crop this morning?

It's going to be fairly full in the evenings if she's been eating/drinking.

 

[Winchikn]

Crop was very hard and full this morning. We tried to get a flush in but it was coming back up so I let her run around for a bit and we managed to get one in a bit later in the day when things had loosened up.

Energy and appetite are still good at 3 weeks today of her crop not emptying properly. I honestly can't believe she's still alive but she's a feisty little thing.

I will start Safeguard tomorrow for 5 days but I think that will be the end of the interventions.

Thank you for your support, @Wyorp Rock and @Tookie . Although this one seems to be a losing battle, it means a lot to have people to lean on.

 

[Winchikn]

So we finished 5 days of Safeguard on Oct 24 and saw no improvement during the course of that treatment. Figuring this hen was in her final days (she was a bit puffed up and slightly lethargic after the days of epsom salts followed by Safeguard), I wanted to treat her and the rest of the flock and let them out to forage in my garden, even though I hadn't pulled all my root veggies quite yet.

I let them in on the 25th late afternoon and was digging my garlic bed and this little hen was eating worms like there was no tomorrow. The next morning, her crop was smaller than it has been in about 2 weeks. I let them in again in the late afternoon yesterday and again she foraged for worms like a champ. And this morning her crop was nearly empty.

This hen is a bit weird. She's never seemed much inclined to eat chicken food but likes to eat her pine shavings bedding, and really, really likes worms. I got her as a pullet and she was a feather eater when she first came to me. Honestly, I think she's had some kind of nutritional deficiency since she arrived in our flock.

We'll see if this holds but I'm thinking either
1) the Safeguard took effect slowly, and cleared a horrible backlog of parasites (I saw nothing in poop)
2) my vet is right and my flock is dealing with Marek's or some other virus that is flaring and subsiding and I am going to continue to see issues come and go (supported by the fact I have a couple sneezing and one of my most robust hens has laboured breathing and her crop seems loose, for lack of a better word)
3) this little hen somehow needed a dose of earthworms and running around in the fresh garden soil to clear her system

I'm not holding my breath. Things have just turned suddenly snowy and cold here which is going to stress the flock some more as they are coming out the end of a hard molt for almost all of them that were laying this year.

I had one other with crop issues that I also treated with Safeguard for the 5 days and she seems better as well. I know I need to worm them all but I really, really want to try to get a float done with some untreated poop so I have some clue as to what I'm dealing with.

I will update again at some point, but at least have a little hope that little Chai might live for a while yet. I'm so glad I didn't cull her - and she certainly didn't seem to want to give up the ghost!

 

[Lillith37]

You are doing so much for your hen! Good on you. Crop issues like this are usually indicative of some underlying issue.

I have several hens who have had periodic/recurrent crop troubles in their time with me and it’s been from things like:
- heavy metal toxicity (which affects the nerves which affects the muscles of the crop which slows digestion)
- reproductive illness
- hen eating something she shouldn’t or something that is hard to digest (screws, feathers, long grass etc).

And of course as you’ve treated for, worms can be a big one too.

I find that little doughy lump of stuff still in one of my hens’ crop quite frequently. Usually a morning massage does the trick. She just needs a little more digesting time than the others. But occasionally she needs the yeast meds, has needed the bra at times etc.

I have found a poultry specific probiotic/synbiotic daily supplement to be quite helpful for all my flock’s digestive health.

My go to is coconut oil and massages for impaction, fennel tea for digestive motility, and egg white if I’m concerned they have eaten something sharp.

I’m lucky to have access to an amazing group of avian/exotic vets and have been reassured that a little bit of stuff left over in the crop in the morning isn’t going to be the end of the world. It’s when you have that persistent large mass that just won’t clear that it becomes serious. So hopefully that gives you some reassurance if your hen is ebbing and flowing with her digestion.

When chickens have persistent crop issues it can be hard to pinpoint the cause without veterinary care/tests/scans etc. Hopefully whatever is affecting your girl/your flock isn’t terminal and you are able to fine tune your supportive care to give them the best and healthiest life possible. Sometimes that’s all we can do.

In my experience, chickens do a lot better when they are out in the fresh air engaging in natural behaviours with their flock mates — so I’m not surprised your hen has shown improvement after being allowed out with the others.

Best of luck with your Chai! She’s lucky to have you.

 

[Winchikn]

You are doing so much for your hen! Good on you. Crop issues like this are usually indicative of some underlying issue.

I have several hens who have had periodic/recurrent crop troubles in their time with me and it’s been from things like:
- heavy metal toxicity (which affects the nerves which affects the muscles of the crop which slows digestion)
- reproductive illness
- hen eating something she shouldn’t or something that is hard to digest (screws, feathers, long grass etc).

And of course as you’ve treated for, worms can be a big one too.

I find that little doughy lump of stuff still in one of my hens’ crop quite frequently. Usually a morning massage does the trick. She just needs a little more digesting time than the others. But occasionally she needs the yeast meds, has needed the bra at times etc.

I have found a poultry specific probiotic/synbiotic daily supplement to be quite helpful for all my flock’s digestive health.

My go to is coconut oil and massages for impaction, fennel tea for digestive motility, and egg white if I’m concerned they have eaten something sharp.

I’m lucky to have access to an amazing group of avian/exotic vets and have been reassured that a little bit of stuff left over in the crop in the morning isn’t going to be the end of the world. It’s when you have that persistent large mass that just won’t clear that it becomes serious. So hopefully that gives you some reassurance if your hen is ebbing and flowing with her digestion.

When chickens have persistent crop issues it can be hard to pinpoint the cause without veterinary care/tests/scans etc. Hopefully whatever is affecting your girl/your flock isn’t terminal and you are able to fine tune your supportive care to give them the best and healthiest life possible. Sometimes that’s all we can do.

In my experience, chickens do a lot better when they are out in the fresh air engaging in natural behaviours with their flock mates — so I’m not surprised your hen has shown improvement after being allowed out with the others.

Best of luck with your Chai! She’s lucky to have you.

You are too kind.

I really think that the 5 days of Safeguard did the trick for this hen after all the other interventions (poor thing). Whatever parasites she had must have been more than the piperzine could handle.

She's had an empty crop every morning since Friday and I've just wanted to leave her be apart from a quick feel of her breast but I'm guessing she's putting on weight.

I have a vet who will do a fecal for me but he's more than an hour away so I have to find a day when I can manage the drive to get a sample to him from one of the chickens I haven't treated yet to see what I'm dealing with. The 5 days of Safeguard is a lot and I ordered some Valbazen online from the US but I have a feeling it got turned back at the border. It's been a while...

I will definitely try fennel tea in future but any crop issues I've had so far with my flock have, like you said, been related to reproductive issues or parasites. They get to range in my garden in the non-growing season and are loving being out there despite the snow and cold that have just arrived for us here.

Anyhow - seems like parasites and a live little chicken are the end of this story - though I will update if anything changes. Thanks for all the support and learning I did along the way with this one.

 

[Lillith37]

I’m so glad the deworming did the trick and her crop is emptying properly! That’s great news.

Maybe consider worming all your flock?

 

[Winchikn]

I’m so glad the deworming did the trick and her crop is emptying properly! That’s great news.

Maybe consider worming all your flock?

Yes! I had to wait for my hubby to get home for a second set of hands.

I ordered some Valbazen from the US but I think it got turned around at the border so I'm stuck with Safeguard, which is such a large amount for some of my bigger chickens. But we'll get the all done in the next week or so here!

 

[Winchikn]

An extremely sad follow up to what I thought was a happy ending to this story...

When I took this hen to the vet several weeks ago, the vet felt her crop and said it didn't feel impacted and that there must something else going on. I told her I had lost three hens this spring, to what I thought was reproductive tract complications from infectious bronchitis - as the flock was sneezing at the time. The vet mentioned Mareks but I had seen no neurological or eye or skin issues in the flock, just sneezing combined with watery albumens and then soft-shelled/shell-less eggs and the loss of these three hens over the course of 2-3 months, with the last one dying in July. My flock is all vaccinated, so I thought there were safe from Mareks - though the vet corrected that misperception.

And I thought I had figured out the something else for this hen when her crop improved following the Safeguard treatment...

Then, this Saturday, when my hubby and I were deworming the rest of our flock (despite finally getting fecal float results that showed low levels of coccidia and nothing else) - we both noticed this same little hen standing still, puffed up, and shivering. In the afternoon, I saw her neck kind of spasm backwards and she staggered a bit - and my heart fell into my stomach. This was the first indication of neurological issues in my flock.

I have now read the long Mareks post, and some pieces have fallen into place ... as my heart has broken into a thousand pieces.

Apart from this one hen, I have had the rest of my flock of 9 for over four years, and they are beloved pets. Two of my favourites are 'off' in addition to the visibly symptomatic hen. Looking back, as they headed into molt this fall I noticed some slight blue tinge to a couple of combs, but thought it was just the molt or the light, and my lead hen's crop has just looked loose for several weeks, but never impacted. She had a couple of very mild neck spasms today, and the other hen that isn't doing well had what seemed like an impaction way up in her neck - where I read somewhere in the last two days that Marek's issues can show up.

I will probably start another *Mareks* thread about what to do for my flock but thought I'd start with the follow up here ... and ask a few questions:

• if some of my flock are not showing symptoms, how much of a difference will it make for me to cull the symptomatic ones - especially the hen showing the nerve symptoms? (I fully understand they are all infected)
• I've been giving vitamins in their water the last 2 days - what else can I do to support the flock?
• what are the chances of remission, if a chicken has started showing neurological symptoms? I thought I read one post where someone talked about having built ramps for their hens who survived but couldn't walk very well, but I thought I read elsewhere that once they start showing neurological symptoms, they are pretty much guaranteed to die
• should I treat for coccidiosis, even though the float didn't show concerning levels? could this help support immune function?

We have already spent over $250 on this hen and I don't think I can afford the shipping plus the lab costs to get her tested. Her nerve symptoms seem far worse in the morning and I will try to get a video of her tomorrow. For much of the day, she has bee foraging fairly happily with the flock. She can't make it onto the roost anymore, or is falling off, so I have been tucking her into one of the nesting boxes at night. I just have this pretty clear feeling in my gut that Mareks is what we are dealing with. My vet mentioned it is incredibly common, which I'll admit I had zero awareness of despite having spent more nights than I can count reading posts on this site.

This will probably spell the end of chicken keeping for me. I had no idea it could turn out this horribly, with the entire flock dying slowly of a virus with such awful impacts. I have no idea how this came into my flock as we have had no visitors to our chickens this year, I keep a pretty clean coop, I have only ever brought vaccinated chicks and pullets in, and have not brought any new birds in since the fall of 2021. Yet, here we are.

 

[Lillith37]

Oh god @Winchikn that sounds terrible, I’m so sorry to hear this news.

I don’t know much about Mareks unfortunately and I don’t think I’m the right person to answer your questions… I have high morbidity in my own flock due to lead toxicity from contaminated soil, so I can at least empathise with how hard it is when you are confronted with something chronic and widespread.

I can also appreciate that this might be the end of chicken keeping for you. In some way, they are the most tragic pets. They are so full of character but there is just so much that can go wrong.

I know that vaccinations can help but are not 100% proof. Sounds like you do an excellent job with your chickens and this is a “do your best in a bad situation” kind of thing.

Sending love and hugs and I hope you’re able to give your birds the supportive care they need or make that hard decision if necessary xxx