Please Help! Chicken not drinking

[ladybuglives]

Hello,
My 7 month old GLW, Maude, has a case of crop impaction ( I think). She gets ACV in her water, organic layer crumbles, free ranges during the day and we have been mulching our garden with hay and straw. She was eating crumbles out of my hand on Thursday and by Friday wanted no food and was standing around listlessly. She drank some water on her own on Friday but only when the other girls were around. I let her sleep out in the coop on Friday having taken her to the local feed store where a guy who knows chickens showed me how to check if she was egg bound and felt her crop. It is not humongous but feels like a lump of play dough that stays pinched when you manipulate it (it was also hanging down like a droopy lumpy flap of skin. I can feel grass or straw in there. The guy didn't think it was impacted and told me she probably just doesn't feel good. I believed him at the time and let her be with her sisters Friday night. She went to roost early and in the morning her crop was not flat and felt exactly the same. So I decided it is impacted and called the guy again. He said to give her a dropper of water and electrolytes every hour and keep her warm. So she came in the house and spent the night inside. I went online and see that olive oil is used for impaction. The guy said I should provide her with grit and offer her scrambled egg. She didn't want the egg or grit. She only will eat a small amount of goat yogurt I mix with oatmeal water I heated on the stove (Maude loves oatmeal). She will not do the bread and oil trick or oatmeal and oil. So I'm having to syringe this in her but NOWHERE in any of the threads I checked tells me how much! She has pooped and a lot of it is very liquidy -- no blood in it). This morning I checked her crop and it is a teensy bit smaller but still doughy and definitely not flat. Since she's not drinking on her own I know I need to syringe fluids in her but here are my questions:

How much fluid an hour?
Should it be electrolyte/vitamin water?
Should it be the ACV water she normally drinks?
Is this on top of or instead of the olive oil water mixture?
Should she be off food until the crop is flat?
Is warm watery yogurt okay?
How about egg?
Since her crop isn't huge should I offer her crumbles and grit mixed?
What if she needs to lay an egg? Will she do it in a strange place?????

How much does she need to stay hydrated?????????????? I have a syringe that is in ml/ccs -- Please someone help me with the amounts. I've checked everywhere for this simple question and can't find the answer. I need the hydration issue solved -- thank you...

 

[Imp]

I'm not sure I'll be much help. No experience just regurgitating stuff I've read.

I googled a bit and came up with 7 ounces per hen per day.

V & Es wouldn't hurt. Also some sugar in the water might be helpful if she is not eating.

Not sure I'd be pushing food if her crop is impacted.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

Is a vet an option? You might want to do some searching, there are many threads on crop impaction.

Hope she gets better

Imp

 

[chicknerd]

I am in the recovery period for a 15 week old pullet, who had an impacted crop that became a statis crop. My girl is still in isolation. She is now on antibiotics. The vet suggested not only should she be isolated but he wanted her in a dark room. She had lost so much weight he wanted her to focus on gaining weight. He said birds heal better when they are in dark rooms. First time I heard this, so we tried it.

What I did to get rid of the impaction was massage, massage, massage. I gave her ACV with her water and withheld food for 24 hours.

There is also a thread here about using about 3cc of wine to help the sour crop. This helped ALOT. It was after she had the wine that I saw the crop was improving.

We did give her plain full fat yogurt, if she wanted to eat. She would burp aweful smelling burps and her poops, when they came were dark and inky. She did vomit a few times and what came out was fermented. I was so worried she has aspirated something at one point and that might be where she developed the infection. We just dont know.


The vet told us that once the crop was unimpacted that she could have 1 TSB feed mixed with water in a mush. I was to feed her no more than every 2-3 hours. If she did well she could go to scrambled egg.

I did take her to the vet when the crop was in stasis but she was not improving. He gave her a shot of antibiotics and said she was weak and needed to gain weight. So since Thursday she has been in a dark bathroom in a dog crate. She gets water with electrolytes and vitamins. I still give them to her in a syringe as well as from a waterer.

I give her fresh mash or yogurt or scrambled egg every 3 hours or so. Sometimes she eats everything, sometimes she eats just a bit. But her throughput is definitely looking healthy and she poops often so I take these as good signs. When she first started her antibiotics her poop was mint green. Now it is normal.

My only concern with her now is that she is VERY slow to gain weight. She is gaining but she still has a long way to go for recovery. I suspect it will be a few weeks before I can even begin to start reintegrating her with the flock.

Hope this helps.



BTW
A Statis crop is a crop that is no longer impacted, but the muscle has not recovered. The muscle is like a balloon that is over stretched and needs to relearn how to retract. This can happen with an impacted crop. So she is on a restricted diet, but is allowed some greens at a VERY minor amount so her diet is varied. But i did not start the greens until the vet said she was out of risk wrt to the impacted crop.

 

[ladybuglives]

Thanks Chicknerd and Imp! Here's today's update:


Saturday she was pretty much in a cage in a warm darkened room inside, on water, no solid food just some yogurt warmed up with oatmeal water. She didn't want her crumbles anyway and was quiet, not preening, just standing there or lying down. In the morning Sunday her crop was slightly smaller but wasn't empty. She still showed little interest in solid food. We moved her to the bathroom which has a cold tile floor and put towels by a mirror where she stayed most of the day with her "friend" in the mirror. She got one syringe of electrolytes and many massages and began to drink on her own. Poop kept coming and began to look normal -- less watery and more substantial. She began to eat some grit and crumbles in the afternoon along with the yogurt (she wouldn't touch the scrambled egg or the bread soaked in oil or the oatmeal itself but did eat about a tsp of plain tuna -- greedily I might add). She was calm and started preening before bedtime when we moved her into her cage in the bedroom which was much cooler than the day before.

This morning her crop was flat!!!! Yippee!!!!! She is acting pretty normal for her (being the least aggressive bird I have). She's preening as we speak and when I put her in the bathroom for the day she immediately went to the crumbles and started eating. I've seen her sip water once but haven't been in there with her continually. I really think the no food for a day, massage, watery yogurt and then grit helped my girl. She eats a lot of knarly stuff and always has. My girls generally free range and it's mulch season. She is the one who gulps down long strands of hay. I hadn't been providing grit because I assumed that they would get it from the soil or the sand in the run. Now, having bought grit I see how it's sharp edged unlike the river sand and probably does a much better job at chopping stuff up. I can't completely curtail Maude from eating stuff that's hard but there is now grit in the run in a bowl next to the oyster shell.

Phew, long story, now for the questions:

Should I keep her in one more day? It will get down to near freezing tonight and she's been inside in a cool but not cold room. I can turn on the heat lamp in the coop but am not sure how much that will help.

Should I open the windows in the room she's sleeping in and/or the day room (bathroom) to get her acclimatized to the weather outside before putting her out?

Should I keep her in the coop/run when I first put her out so she doesn't go straight for the mulch again?

Basically, how long is the recovery period from what I think was a beginning stage of crop impaction (caught before it really was "impacted")?

 

[chicknerd]

Quote:
I would give her at least one more day.
I like the idea of opening the window to get her acclimated, but again, I would wait one more day.

Our vet even suggested that they need to be reacclimated to the flock. They will NOT remember her. You have to add her like a new bird, as that is what she is to them now.

How long? I depends on the bird and condition. I am at day 10 with my girl, but she was in a bad state. So she will be at least another whole week in the house until she is back to normal.

Glad things are going well!!!

 

[Imp]

ladybuglives,
Glad she's doing better. That's good news.

chicknerd,
great information

Imp