PLEASE HELP (pics) Impacted crop??

[Colie <3]

The last few days I've noticed Peepers hasn't been feeling well. Drooping wings, lethargic, poofed up with watery stool and I also noted what I assumed was clear poo with white in it.
I isolated her yesterday and based off of my fears of cocci and worms treated everyone with Wazine and started them on Sulmet.
Just now I was cuddling Peepers and I noticed a huge knot that wasn't there yesterday on her chest. It's about 1 inch in diameter, reddish and hard. I immediately compared her crop to the other chicks I have to see what a full crop feels like on them and nobody even came close to presenting in size like she has. Peepers is a 5 week old ameraucana bantam.
Here are the pictures:

It's a little hard to see in the pictures but in comparison to her size it's huge! What do you all think? What should I do? Am I freaking out for nothing? I feel like a new mom all over again...

 

[Judy]

I'd read in the threads linked on the FAQ page about sour and impacted crop.

 

[Colie <3]

Quote:
I'm reading them now, I just want to make sure I'm not freaking out over nothing. Peepers has had a hard time with me lately poor chickie

 

[chickerdoodle]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=294963&p=2
Post #13 has a decent description on what to do. If you do try to massage up--do not massage up so far to make the impaction come out of the esophagus as they may aspirate it. Only massage to help break it up. Do not be too aggressive--the crop can become injured or ulcerated. Olive oil and later some live culture yogurt may help some if she'll eat it. Poor baby.

 

[Colie <3]

Quote:
Thanks for the link. Her crop isn't any smaller but I massaged it and it went from rock hard to slightly pliable. I gave her some olive oil and took away her food for the night I hope it's better by morning because it hasn't gotten smaller in the last 3-4 hours.

btw my mom raises mali's hers are crazy as well lol

 

[chickerdoodle]

How is your baby this morning?

BTW We adore our Mali! We adopted her from the US Air Force. She injured her knee at 2 years of age so was pulled from active duty. We had a specialist correct the injury and she's back to 100%! She is 6 now and still a crazy intense woman, LOL. I have trained her to keep the chickens in their coop by gently bumping them with her nose if they try to make a break while I change their waterer. Its pretty funny and she needs a job anyway. They are not afraid of her as I raised them in our family room.

 

[Colie <3]

Her crop is smaller but not by much. It didn't empty overnight like I had hoped. I gave her olive oil and some plain yogurt last night and then took away her food. She still doesn't have food down but there is poop in her isolation tub so at least I can tell she isn't completely blocked up I guess. I'm going to go give her some more olive oil and yogurt and massage her crop. That's about all I can do right? If her crop still hasn't gone down noticeably by tomorrow I'm going to call a livestock vet here and see if he'll see her. My husband will flip spending a vet fee on a $15 chick but I can't just let her be miserable and die... Her wings are a little less droopy today and I can actaully see a bit of her tail so I'd say she isn't as poofed out as she has been. I'm still treating her water with Sulmet as I suspected she might have had Cocci before her crop got impacted. Even if she doesn't have cocci I don't want to stop a round of antibiotics in the middle of treatment considering the whole antibiotic resistant thing with human I'm supposing it's the same with birds.

Long ramble about Mali's after this point

My parents always had German Shepherds when I was growing up, I have always had German Shepherds as an adult but about 10 years ago my mom got interested in Belgians Malinois and got a male from a breeder in Louisville, KY that came from a program that specialized in drug dogs. He was an amazing dog named Reef (aka Reefer wanna guess why? lol) He died at about 4 years old because he was poisoned by a evil neighbor who was tired of seeing him in their yard. She tried to keep him in the yard but Belgians are notorious "houdini's". Poor guy we all cried our eyes out over him. (btw now she has her dogs on a wireless containment system and it works like a charm!)

Then about 6 years ago my mom was watching TV one day and saw a new report on an animal shelter about 4 hours from her house. The report was about how the shelter was accused of taking cattle prods to their dogs and also was accused of taking them out back and shooting them in the head with a rifle to "euthanize" them. She saw in an outdoor run in the background a pitiful looking tan colored dog. She immediately jumped up and ran to the screen to look closer and low and behold it was a Mali! She flipped out jumped in the car drove 4 hours and went to the shelter demanding to see the Mali and take her home. Reluctantly they agreed saying they "didn't know why she would bother with that one nobody wanted her."

Anyhow she still has her, her name is Baby and she's a doll baby. She was very underweight and mistreated but now she is a wonderful dog very sweet and loyal. A couple years later my mom got another Mali from a breeder in Georgia. His name is Demon and the name fits well. He's huge and onry but a good dog as well. She got Baby CKC registered and bred Demon and Baby together making the cutest well bred mali pups I've ever seen. Baby apparently came from very good stock and ended up in the wrong hands somewhere down the line. She had 3 or 4 litters I think of 8-11 puppies but now she's retired living out her days sleeping on the couch and begging for scraps LOL. Her puppies went to many owners who traveled far and wide for a mali puppy since they are so hard to find. Her last litter had 4 of her pups go to become police dogs working in search and rescue and narcotics. My mom kept one a female named Pepper who is a giant sweet girl and then gave two away to a close family friend so we get to see them often. Here's a picture of a pup from Baby's second to last litter isn't he adorable?

I think it's awesome you have a veteran mali

I wish I could train my dogs to watch over the chicks but as of right now all they want to do it lick them and try and sit on them lol Keeping a Mali busy is a huge chore and one of the biggest things I think in keeping them from being destructive so good for her being a good chicken guardian

*sigh* I think I know so much about dogs but when it goes to chickens I'm an idiot

I can't wait until I get past the newbie chicken keeper stage. lol