I am dealing with a hen with pretty bad crop issues, she came from a farm that fell into disrepair and she was in pretty bad shape. She was a high quality show bird turned to breeding battery hen..means non-stop pumping out fertile eggs ...The owner got very sick and the wife couldnt keep up the flock, had to sell them all off
When we got her she just smelled so bad (breath) that you just couldnt stand to be near her almost and she had the worst case of lice, mites and the leg mites giant messy leg scales , it was very bad.. I had to just tackle one problem at a time, It has taken pretty much months but finally getting to look and feel better..but Im not sure id she will ever fully recover. she just got the Vets approval to be brought out of quarentine 2 weeks ago.you have to hit one problem at a time or it will overwelm the bird..
she was alos quite underweight...
.If some of the crop material is passing and it looks, feels more normal you wont need to empty her crop it may start to recover on its own, the bits of bread will help but dont let her have free chouce of feed for a little while thou she seems to want to regulate what she takes in herself,
if you do have to dunp her crop dont let her head down too long, she will choke she needs to come up for a breath lot like a person throwing up.. I dip down long enough for a decent amount to come out, tip them back up, its almost a count of 5 I just count to myself 1-2-3-4- once the stuff starts to roll out. then back up They will drown like a person asphyxiating if you dont let them back up so dont just hold them down.
I have had to do this a several times over many years times with different hens. To date havnt lost one..One was shaking when I was finished, I put her in a pen by herself so she couldnt over eat like she likes to , the next day she acted like normal...even begging more food but for a couple days I only gave her a little, now she is back out running around like nothing ever happened.. Boy she was a sick chicken just befor I did that, for three days or so she just mopped around and extreamly full crop..I knew that one wasnt going to get better on its own.. had to tip her three times to get the most of it out and be warned , it really smells very bad..Sometimes chickens tend to eat something that is too tough for the crop like old tough grass and it clogs up in there..Or weeds or she could have found something like bracken fern and had a little sample for herself. in that case there isnt much you can do .but wait and see
If It were me, If the crop looks like its emptying out by itself dont try to dump it , a little antibiotic for a couple days might help , or VETRX , a couple drops of that put directly in her mouth for a couple days works wonders. The hen we have bounced right back after I did that..she no longer has that terrible smell..I add just a couple drops right in her water as a tonic, it sits on the top of the water but she seems to really like it.. She still has a long way to go, for a while she even had this goopy stuff in her mouth and it was thick but blood tests found nothing she is a HUGE bird (orpington) and probably wasnt getting the correct grits for a very long time vet thinks...Last on our list for her is a good worming with wazine17. legs are cleared up, had to tackle crop issue and bought a natural enzyme spray, sprayed her bedding as she still has her own pen and her several times now it releives stress in the bird and its all natural I looked under her wings today and didnt see any nits or anything other than pink skin. So hopefully after a good worming this week, she will start to gain weight, the vet said part of her weight problems are that she is a heavy feathered bird and her body is working very hard to keep them..I noticed today that she actually is starting to get a sheen to her feathers after all of this.
Its just good to know in case someday you need to do this.
Would love to try safeguard mentioned above post but All I ever find at the feed stores is for horses and wazine for chickens.
Its a long battle with some and easy with others. Hope your hen recovers and everybody will want to hear how she is making out.
