Well, it's the right location for the crop. She is young, I haven't done a surgery on one so young. I would do as the other poster said, isolate and see if it goes down some in the morning (take the food away at night) and if the bird is pooping at all. Search "impacted crop" on this site and see what remedies you can try. Getting a bit of water in there and massaging it several times a day would be the first thing I would try. The bird is reacting to the pressure when you touch it. With a crop so large, pressure on it likely makes the contents try to come up out of the birds mouth and that is what she is feeling. When you massage, do it in a downward motion. Sometimes people try to turn the bird upside down and squeeze the contents out of the birds mouth, but this is very tricky, has to be done quickly and the bird uprighted so it doesn't aspirate on the contents coming out. Usually, this is done after adding water to the crop to liquify the contents and is done in the even of a soured crop. However, your bird is quite young and its crop so large that frankly I don't see any room for adding water. It also won't work if the mass is something other than food that just isn't moving. So, I would try a syringe and get the bird to drink a bit and then massage, massage, massage. Has the bird had any grit? If it hasn't, I would bet it would take some if you offered. Lets hope the mass is just in the crop and that it doesn't have an impaction further down the tract. Because that is not something that can be resolved often and crop surgery doesn't resolve that. Once I had a bird with a tangled hay mass pass all the way through it's digestive system and stay stuck in the intestinal part. I knew the bird was ill. I kept dosing him with extra water for several days. One day I saw something protruding from the vent. It looked like a finger sized rope. I took a pair of tweezers and helped it birth about an eight inch long rope of twisted hay. That's what had been blocking the poor thing and causing his slow crop. Never put hay down for bedding again. I've also seen small chicks get these huge crops like yours has from being on fine shavings. I would avoid that stuff also. Sometimes chicks aren't too smart and eat all the wrong things. If it was eating that stuff and didn't have access to grit, it could be that is causing the plug up. Also, since the bird isn't getting proper nutrition I would put a vit/min supplement in its water immediately. If you do surgery, search it throughly. Make sure everything is sterile, that you have everything you need including antibiotics, make sure the incision is at the top and it doesn't have to be large, and that you withhold food for the proper length of time afterwards, that the food you do offer is very soft and nutritious, and that the bird has access to nothing else to eat in the recovery cage. Nothing, not newspaper, paper towels, shavings, etc. Be prepared to feed it several times throughout the day, small amounts. If you can only tend to it twice a day, that won't work.Here is a photograph of the female chick with suspected illness- perhaps impacted crop?- the bulge is about half the size of a clementine. I know it is hard to tell from a photograph- from what you folks can see, should I perform the surgery? She is so young I am afraid she will die- but I'm also afraid she will die without surgery.
With medicated feed, I have still had cocci in some chicks. I don't bother with it anymore, just keep Corid on hand. I feel like it's a low dose preventative.
An update on the chick: last night we tried finding sutures and betadine at TSC. They did carry betadine but not sutures, and they couldn't tell me where to find them.
When my husband and I got home, we tried massaging the crop. Just touching the crop at first some brown liquid started spilling out of her beak.
We gave her a break for an hour and then massaged the crop again. Nothing came out, but you could feel little bits of grit in the crop, so she has been getting the grit.
She was very lethargic and tired, so we isolated her in a dog crate with the ecoglow and only water. I did not think she would make it through the night, but as of this morning, she is still alive.
I'm not completely sure, but it seems like the bulge has gone down a little bit.
So this might be more of a sour crop/ slow crop issue- should I try feeding plain yogurt or scrambled eggs with oil?
(If she is still alive when I get home from work?)
I almost wonder since this chick is so young and weak if the crop has never really worked at all- at least not worked very well....
