RumneyRoost
Songster
So here is the saga of Echo the two year old Easter egger hen.
Echo stopped laying late August/Early September and I believed she was starting a long, slow molt. She's the bottom of the pecking order and is very nervous of people, so she's always a little stressed and flighty. In the spring her "friends" had pecked her shoulders going to roost and the feathers finally grew back this fall after she stopped laying.
In mid November I went to the feed store and picked up a back of their regular food. I noticed that the consistency was a little different, but it smelled fine, more like they added a binder so the crumbles held together better.
November 21/22 I let the girls out to free range. I noticed the night of the 22 that Echo had watery diarrhea, her crop was full. In the morning I was disappointed to see that her crop hadn't emptied. I spent the week trying to get the impaction to pass. Liquid was still emptying. I wormed the flock with piperazine just in case (we had a round worm infestation during the summer). She was acting normal, but had lost some weight.
On November 29 I took her to the vet for crop surgery. Her crop was stuffed full of grass. I suspect that she hadn't been eating the new bag of food, so she gorged on grass and it knotted up in a ball that wouldn't pass out of the crop. Post surgery she weighed 3lbs 13oz
From the 29th, until Dec 3rd I had her separated from her friends in the garage. She wasn't very interested in regular food, but was drinking on her own, and acting normally. She was happy to eat live meal worms, but I didn't want to give her too many that soon after surgery. I suspected that she was stressed so I decided to put her back out with her friends. On Dec 3 she weighed 3 lbs 7 oz. I bought a different brand of food in the hopes that she would like it more than the previous.
My red sexlink was bullying her so during a 4 day stretch of warm weather I stuck the sexlink in a dog crate inside the run. The bullying is very minor now. There are multiple feed stations in the run and coop, and one heated waterer (flock of 6 hens). I've added stress aid and probiotics to the water. I've also periodically given her some poly vi sol (without iron) directly. I also gave her a B1 pill hoping that it would stimulate her appetite, assuming she's deficient given that she hasn't eaten much in the last month.
I weighed her again on Dec 13th and she still only weighed 3 lbs 7 oz.
The incision never looked infected. We opted to not use antibiotics as we didn't want to further upset the flora in the crop. There is a bit of a scab at the bottom of the incision, the sutures take 21 days to dissolve (we're 17 days post-op). The incision site doesn't seem to bother her, I can touch it and massage her crop and she doesn't mind.
My Concerns
-She isn't gaining weight
- some mornings there is still some food in the crop (it seems to go down with some massage), almost like the muscle isn't contracting and pushing all of the food out
- any sort of separation, even a crate within the coop or run causes her a great deal of stress
- we're in Canada and it's winter, keeping warm is going to burn a lot of calories
Optimism
-she has never acted sick through this whole ordeal (she has energy, feels well, just skinny)
-she has survived thus far: we're 25 days since the impaction started, and 17 days post crop surgery
- no evidence of ascites, I'm hopeful that this isn't an underlying reproductive issue
- I haven't added any new birds to the flock in over a year, and they were day old chicks, so unlikely to be a virus/contagious. Everyone else is healthy, I haven't had a death since August 2019 (repro issue in a young layer).
Next steps
a) continue doing what I've been doing and hope that the crop regains more function and her appetite picks up
b) start tube feeding morning and night while leaving her out with her friends
c) bring her back into the garage and do some intensive care and monitoring, hoping that the stress doesn't kill her. Reintroducing her again would also be difficult and stressful.
Any thoughts? Advice?
Echo stopped laying late August/Early September and I believed she was starting a long, slow molt. She's the bottom of the pecking order and is very nervous of people, so she's always a little stressed and flighty. In the spring her "friends" had pecked her shoulders going to roost and the feathers finally grew back this fall after she stopped laying.
In mid November I went to the feed store and picked up a back of their regular food. I noticed that the consistency was a little different, but it smelled fine, more like they added a binder so the crumbles held together better.
November 21/22 I let the girls out to free range. I noticed the night of the 22 that Echo had watery diarrhea, her crop was full. In the morning I was disappointed to see that her crop hadn't emptied. I spent the week trying to get the impaction to pass. Liquid was still emptying. I wormed the flock with piperazine just in case (we had a round worm infestation during the summer). She was acting normal, but had lost some weight.
On November 29 I took her to the vet for crop surgery. Her crop was stuffed full of grass. I suspect that she hadn't been eating the new bag of food, so she gorged on grass and it knotted up in a ball that wouldn't pass out of the crop. Post surgery she weighed 3lbs 13oz
From the 29th, until Dec 3rd I had her separated from her friends in the garage. She wasn't very interested in regular food, but was drinking on her own, and acting normally. She was happy to eat live meal worms, but I didn't want to give her too many that soon after surgery. I suspected that she was stressed so I decided to put her back out with her friends. On Dec 3 she weighed 3 lbs 7 oz. I bought a different brand of food in the hopes that she would like it more than the previous.
My red sexlink was bullying her so during a 4 day stretch of warm weather I stuck the sexlink in a dog crate inside the run. The bullying is very minor now. There are multiple feed stations in the run and coop, and one heated waterer (flock of 6 hens). I've added stress aid and probiotics to the water. I've also periodically given her some poly vi sol (without iron) directly. I also gave her a B1 pill hoping that it would stimulate her appetite, assuming she's deficient given that she hasn't eaten much in the last month.
I weighed her again on Dec 13th and she still only weighed 3 lbs 7 oz.
The incision never looked infected. We opted to not use antibiotics as we didn't want to further upset the flora in the crop. There is a bit of a scab at the bottom of the incision, the sutures take 21 days to dissolve (we're 17 days post-op). The incision site doesn't seem to bother her, I can touch it and massage her crop and she doesn't mind.
My Concerns
-She isn't gaining weight
- some mornings there is still some food in the crop (it seems to go down with some massage), almost like the muscle isn't contracting and pushing all of the food out
- any sort of separation, even a crate within the coop or run causes her a great deal of stress
- we're in Canada and it's winter, keeping warm is going to burn a lot of calories
Optimism
-she has never acted sick through this whole ordeal (she has energy, feels well, just skinny)
-she has survived thus far: we're 25 days since the impaction started, and 17 days post crop surgery
- no evidence of ascites, I'm hopeful that this isn't an underlying reproductive issue
- I haven't added any new birds to the flock in over a year, and they were day old chicks, so unlikely to be a virus/contagious. Everyone else is healthy, I haven't had a death since August 2019 (repro issue in a young layer).
Next steps
a) continue doing what I've been doing and hope that the crop regains more function and her appetite picks up
b) start tube feeding morning and night while leaving her out with her friends
c) bring her back into the garage and do some intensive care and monitoring, hoping that the stress doesn't kill her. Reintroducing her again would also be difficult and stressful.
Any thoughts? Advice?
