Possible esophagus or crop puncture.

[ChickenNerd32]

Question...I am 90% sure my chicken has an injured crop or esophagus. I think she poked it on a stray piece of chicken wire I’ve apparently missed or perhaps a quarrel? I’m not sure. The wound smells awful and if I put pressure on her crop the wound oozes. I’ve cleaned, disinfected it, and put blue healer on it. I’ve read only surgery will fix it which isn’t an option for me unfortunately.
My question is, has anyone had any success with at home care for this type of issue?

The pictures are what’s oozing out. I can’t seem to get a good one of the wound itself. It looks like pellet pieces, there was corn, and about 2 inch long green slime when I cleaned it.
Any assistance is appreciated.

 

[coach723]

I would cut back the feathers around the wound so that you can see it. With better pictures someone will likely be able to help you.
Is a vet and option for you at all?
Many people have done crop surgeries successfully to remove impactions, and there are some threads on here from those that have done repairs due to injury. Kind of depends on where it is damaged and how severe it is. You can search for those threads, I will attach a couple that I found quickly. You would need to flush the wound thoroughly, stitch the crop closed, and then the skin over it separately. The crop will be thick and muscular, the skin will be pretty thin. A round of antibiotics would also be a good idea since it may very well be infected since you said it smells awful.
If the crop is open then survival is going to require that it be repaired. If that isn't possible then it would be kindest to not let her suffer as she would eventually die from starvation or infection.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/how-to-crop-operation-warning-graphic-pics.21291/
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/chicken-with-torn-crop.836565/

 

[ChickenNerd32]

Thank you. I will see if I can get an extra pair of hands to help me with that. My husband is a fire fighter and on shift. Maybe he can bring me home some materials for stitching if that’s what it is after closer inspection .

 

[ChickenNerd32]

And to answer your vet question, we don’t have any within any reasonable distance around us that handle poultry .

 

[Eggcessive]

Sorry about your chicken. I would follow the advice given by Coach723. Do you have any betadine (povidone iodine) or chlorhexidene for disinfecting the wound? Dawn and a kitchen sink sprayer or a hand held shower sprayer would work too. Some people use superglue to close crops during surgery, but as Coach pounted out, there is the crop layer and the skin layer that have to be closed separately.

Recently we had a thread about a rooster who has suffered a dog bite to his crop that leaked for a few days, and it did close up on it’s own, but he had to be put down because his legs were totally fostbitten and couldn’t walk.

I hope that you and your husband can be successful, but the best thing would be to put her down if you can’t repair it. Feed stores sell procaine penicillin G (and syringes with 20 gauge needles) which can be used to treat wounds, but if you can get amoxicillin, Baytril, cephalexin, or something like that, it might be better. Those have to be obtained online or obtained from a vet.

 

[ChickenNerd32]

Thank you! I’m going to tractor supply soon and gathering up these items. I’m hoping once I get in there and get a better look I will be able to decide if she can be saved or not. It’s such a shame because I really have no clue what did it. Those are the worst aren’t they? When you have no clue so that you could prevent it from happening again in the future.

 

[coach723]

You can get amoxicillin and cephalexin capsules as fish antibiotics on line without prescription (assuming you are in the US), I have used both. Look for Fish Mox or Fish Flex, one source is here, there are others: https://www.valleyvet.com/search.html?gas=fish antibiotic You can get oral enrofloxacin (baytril) as a pigeon medication without a prescription here: https://www.jedds.com/shop/misc/

 

[ChickenNerd32]

I wanted to let everyone know that the hole was into her crop. It is still unknown how it got there but I was able to perform self surgery (thanks to the link coach723) on the 17th. I cleaned out the crop but there wasn’t any real impaction. I had ordered absorbable sutures so after cleaning out her crop I sewed her up (inside and outside serperately of course), and we’re at the 2 week mark tomorrow. She is doing great. Eating, drinking, pooping, roosting, and everything like nothing ever happened. Thank you for helping me with this issue. I’m hoping we won’t have to go through it again in the future but I’m happy now knowing I can fix it .

 

[coach723]

Thank you for the update, so glad it went well and your bird is doing well!
They are amazingly resilient and survive some awful looking stuff. Glad you gave her a chance!

 

[Eggcessive]

That is such great news. I am so glad that you were able to do the crop surgery on her and save her life. Thanks for the good news.