Need advice, after care for crop surgery for very skinny hen

[Ciqala]

Last Tuesday my hen Shirley, a SLW, had crop surgery performed by our vet. When I first picked her up to bring her in the house 'cuz she looked rough out there, I couldn't believe how skinny she was. She's skin, bones and feathers

The surgery went well, the vet pulled out tons of hay. Needless to say, she is very weak. She's residing in a large dog crate in the house with a 50 watt heat lamp bulb pointed at her.

She's barely eating/drinking. I've offered her wet chick crumbles, boiled egg both of which she might poke at and sometimes nibble. She wants nothing to do with yogurt, but I have syringed some into her along with water here and there. I believe she's developed vent gleet, she was dripping clear liquid and her feathers are a mess. I've cleaned up her fanny, clipped the feathers and read in my searches of the board that an epsom salt flush would be good... so I did that a few hours ago.

I was wondering if maybe she should be on an antibiotic? Am I doing the right thing by providing a heat lamp? It's not cold here, but there's nothing to her and her feet are cool to the touch. What's the best thing to feed her, for energy, healing and helping her start to gain some weight back? Or heck, just to entice her back into eating? How long after surgery should it be until I see her more willing to eat, therefore be less lethargic? I don't want her to suffer, but I want to give her a chance the best I can.

 

[Eggcessive]

Just so you know, I have never treated impacted or sour crop, but I have read that sour crop can be either a bacterial or fungal infection. One vet gave a person's hen both an antibiotic and an antifungal medicine at the same time for sour crop. Vent gleet is usually fungal, like a yeast infection, and is treated with probiotics, an antifungal such as Medistatin available online (the evquivalent of Nystatin that your vet can prescribe) and antifungal creams such as Nustock, Miconazole, or similar. Some people use acidified copper sulfate 1/4 tsp added to a gallon of water for 3 days as an antifungal treatment when Nystatin is not available. I think vitamins (especially B1 and B12 ) might stimulate her appetite, probiotics (or buttermilk/plain yogurt in small amounts) would help her gut. Eggs of any kind, low salt tuna or meat wizzed in the food processor, and other tempting foods might put some weight back on. Good luck.

 

[Michael Apple]

It isn't cheap, but I have used this for crop/intestinal problems and it works very well:
http://www.jedds.com/-strse-651/MEDISTATIN/Detail.bok

I don't know if your vet checked for intestinal, gizzard worms, but if you can get the hen back on track eating and drinking on her own, I'd suggest worming the bird.