bmayer
Chirping
Hi all! I am new as a member but not new to searching for answers on questions I have about my girls here! I guess I'll just introduce myself and my girls? I live in the north eastern USA and have 11 hens. 3 two year old Easter eggers, 4 two year old buff orpingtons, and 4 ten month old brown leghorns. As much as I love all of them, I am quite fond of my buffs, they're just so great in every way. I used to have 4 Easter eggers but lost one this past summer for unknown reasons. She seemed fine one morning and we found her cold in a nest box in the coop in the afternoon. Only 2 years old
well anyways, let's not dwell on the past! I love my girls and try to keep them as happy and healthy as possible!
I have, however, run into some trouble this week with my absolute FAVORITES girl, Mindy. She developed quite the impacted crop at the beginning of the week. We gave her small amounts of watered down mushy pellets and massaged her crop at least twice a day all week. She has lost a ton of weight, you can see her breast bone protruding under her feathers and she is tiny now when she used to be one of my fatter ones a few weeks ago. The crop is finally almost empty, except for a large marble sized lump. She has been eating well and drinking like a fiend through the whole thing until yesterday. She only picked at her mash in the morning and wasn't interested in any of it by the evening. She has been pecking at every tiny speck on the floor of my kitchen and always tries to steal whatever it is that I'm eating, especially potato chips! (She tried stealing one out of my mouth last night
). So she is definitely hungry but just not eating what she should be and she basically only eats if I hand feed it to her. I got her to eat a slice of bread, with water so it was mushy since we still seem to have a crop problem, about a teaspoon of peanut butter, about a tablespoon of banana, and a teaspoon of leftover beef roast from last night. She's still at least drinking really really well. She is disinterested in peanut butter now and won't eat raw eggs. I'm going no to try cooking some eggs to see if she will eat that, though I'm not terribly hopeful to be honest
. Any ideas about what the heck is going on with my baby and different things I should try would be amazing! I'm so scared I'm going to lose her.
I have, however, run into some trouble this week with my absolute FAVORITES girl, Mindy. She developed quite the impacted crop at the beginning of the week. We gave her small amounts of watered down mushy pellets and massaged her crop at least twice a day all week. She has lost a ton of weight, you can see her breast bone protruding under her feathers and she is tiny now when she used to be one of my fatter ones a few weeks ago. The crop is finally almost empty, except for a large marble sized lump. She has been eating well and drinking like a fiend through the whole thing until yesterday. She only picked at her mash in the morning and wasn't interested in any of it by the evening. She has been pecking at every tiny speck on the floor of my kitchen and always tries to steal whatever it is that I'm eating, especially potato chips! (She tried stealing one out of my mouth last night
