Please help, impacted crop, should I take away food?

[chickenherder26]

We have 10 chickens, the one who is sick is called Marmalade or Marm for short. She has had impacted crop once before and sour crop twice. We noticed about a week ago that her crop was large and hard. We checked it early in the morning when the chickens were still on the roost and it was still large (although smaller) and hard. We have been treating her with frozen oil and massaging her crop a couple of times a day, but the impaction is still there. We are concerned that the crop could turn sour so we have been treating her with Miconazole suppositories because the cream doesn't really work for some reason. What's really weird is that she acts fairly normal: she goes out and forages with the other chickens, eating things off the ground, etc, but she isn't eating treats. She is super light because of her last sour and impacted crop and the only thing that is heavy about her is her crop. Should we quarantine her and take away food or just leave her be?

 

[Purelychicks]

Separate her, take away food for a day or 2 , make her drink around 1tsp olive oil, make her drink electrolytes, and massage frequently. If that doesn’t resolve the problem after a while, it can be surgically removed by a vet, or some one who has experience with that kind of stuff.

 

[Countryhippie]

Okay so I had a major issue with this in the fall last year. So I took my girl to the vet and it cost a fortune and nothing they did help. This is what I would recommend.

1st separate her, no food or water for 24 hours. In this time massage her crop off and on for a few minutes. You need to get as much out as possible to get the part that is impacted shown more.

2nd If her crop has emptied a bit offer small amounts of water with oil mixed in. Do this every 2 hours, twice. Massage crop after for 10 minutes. At this point, it should go down a bit. (You can use coconut oil, If possible use small pieces of hardened coconut oil and shove it down her beak. Only a little at a time)

3rd you can offer a small amount of mash like 1/4 a cup, Get crumble food, or blend pellets. Add a bit of water and oil to this as well. Do this twice every two hours and massage for 10 minutes after you feed it.

This should help, but if not you will need a vet to cut her open and remove it. My girls crop was impacted quite a lot with grass and this did help her. After you do this though you may want to treat her for sour crop just in case, because my girl got sour crop after.

You can put the girl back if her crop has gone down, but then treat sour crop.

To treat sour crop, get Monistat 3 suppositories. Cut one suppository in four peices and feed one piece to the chicken twice a day, once in the morning and once at night. You will need to open her beak and shove it in. Do this for four days. Also add a splash of apple cider vinegar to one gallon of water during the four days. make sure you change this water every day.

Hope this helps

 

[chickenherder26]

Thank you!