Question about a recovering hen's hard crop

[Chido]

My barred rock hen, Spaghetti, is slowly recovering from a nasty respiratory infection. For over two weeks all she did was drink water and just a few days ago she started to eat a bit. She poops pretty much water with some bright green feces and the white stuff that chicken poop is usually covered on, is yellow. I know that's bile, and now that Spaghetti is finally eating some pellets soaked in water until they get all mushy like oatmeal, she poops more, but her poop is not solid at all yet, and it looks like she's not quite digesting her food well. She does poop some ceacal matter now (finally), that looks somewhat normal, so I take that as a good sign.

My question here is: I've noticed the lower half of her crop is really hard. Spaghetti lost a lot of weight, and I'm trying to give her as much food and treats as she can handle, and that are easy to digest. I thought she had an impacted or sour crop, but the upper half of her crop feels normal, and there's no fetid smell from her beak. Is that thicker, harder part of the crop normal? Do I notice it because she's so underweight?

 

[CMV]

Have you tried massaging the hard part of the crop? That might work to break up any masses in there. Has she had access to grit? The hard part of the crop could be just her grit. If the hard part feels solid then it may be a mass, but if it feels gritty and moveable then it may be perfectly normal. You are probably noticing all this because she has lost so much weight.

 

[stoopid]

X2

 

[Chido]

Well it doesn't feel gritty, it's more like that part of her crop feel thickened, and Spaghetti doesn't like it when I try to massage it. I don't want to stress her too much trying to massage her crop since she's still recovering and she's finally passing feces (she's never pooped normal, solid poop but it'd splat everywhere, yet it's not diarrhea). She looks more alert and is even walking around in the back porch, so I'm gonna wait a couple more days before I try to really massage her crop again, but I'm gonna try to give her some olive oil tonight and see if she lets me touch her crop so I can massage it a bit.

 

[CMV]

Sounds like the best course of action to me.

Good luck.

 

[Tilly's Nest]

Maybe try adding some plain yogurt too?

 

[Chido]

She won't eat yogurt, she didn't do it when she was ok, she won't do it now, although I did force feed her some yogurt with a syringe a couple of times in the last few days just to make sure she had something easy to digest in her stomach. Spaghetti was more active today, and while she won't still eat dry lay pellets, she's been eating lay pellet mash, and also some of the starter/grower crumbles I give the leghorn pullet we got. I took my cockerel and the head hen out of the run, and let Spaghetti hang out with the other pullets, and they did well. She drank a lot of water as usual, but also took a dust bath and ate some grass, and I think I saw her eat a bug or two, too.

She's slowly getting better, but I've had her for a few months only, and she was already a grown hen when we bought her, and her health has never been too good. I hope I get to make her feel as comfortable and happy as possible for the few years (I hope) she'll be with us.

Edit: forgot to ask, sometimes when she lowers her head to eat something from the floor some water comes out of her mouth, it'd happen a few times even before she got sick, any idea why that is?