Sick Hen, ~9mo/o acting lethargic and has yellow diarrhea

[Axil]

Hello,

First i'd like to take a moment to thank this community for the wealth of information that is provided here. My chickens would've had a much tougher life had sites like this not been available to educate new owners.

Sadly my first post is about a distressed chicken. I noticed a couple days ago she seemed to be spending more time in the coop then usual. I have three hens and they are usually all together except when they need to lay an egg. Then two days ago I saw her just sitting on the edge of the run that is up against the house. After keeping an eye on her for a couple hours i went ahead and brought her inside and placed her in a dog crate in my bedroom for triage. Since then i've noticed the following

1.) all her droppings are very watery, with about half being pure water and the other half being very runny yellow.

2.) she keeps her head very close to her body and the base of the neck feels hard to the touch like the muscles are very tight.

3.) her tail is held perpendicular to her body it's not pointed down like i've seen in pictures for egg binding. but it doesn't curve up to a point like her siblings.

4.) She feels to be lighter than her sisters. only one is the same breed (Plymouth rock i believe) so i'm not sure how useful such a comparison is. For the size she is she seems noticeable light though

5) I withheld food and water overnight and checked her crop in the morning. It wasn't full but it definitely had a bit of the "doughy" feel i've heard is indicative of sour crop.

Yesterday i gave her a little dish of water, she drank a bit but not as much as i would've expected going 12ish hours without. That evening i felt her crop again and it was still a bit doughy, though again not anywhere near the size it would normally get after a feeding. I did a bit of research and mixed a small amount (10-15) of her layer feed with a tablespoon of plain unsweetened greek yogurt which i verified contained the live cultures that were supposed to be useful in helping deal with sour crop. She attacked it like she famished which I took as a good sign. This morning her crop still feels squishy though. Oh, and i should probably mention i've been massaging her crop gently in a downward direction to try and help move things along 3-4 times a day.

At this point i'm just not sure what to do. I hate not giving her more to eat as she seems so hungry, and if she is underweight fasting certainly isn't helping. But my understanding of sour crop suggest that food intake can exacerbate the problem. It's also my understanding that dairy isn't great for her digestive system so giving her a bunch of yogurt isn't a good idea either. I've checked around her vent a few times and it looks normal though it does tend to spasm a bit when i expose it, like she may be trying to poop. Not sure if that's normal given the circumstances.

Overall she seems comfortable but more subdued than normal. She would normally be more annoyed with all my handling of her and sometimes she does express her annoyance with a halfhearted struggle and a few clucks. Her clucks and squawk sound normal but i only get the quiet end of her normal range. My other girls squawk like crazy when i walk by the coop hoping they might get something.

So at this point i'm not sure what to do. Any advice would be very much appreciated. I've watched videos of people purging a hens crop by holding them beak down and massaging the crop but of course i don't want to subject her to something so dramatic if it's not going to help her. She managed to sit in some of her poo during the night so she will be getting a warm bath soon.

To anyone that took the time to read this ridiculously long post thank you very much. below (assuming i figure out how to do it) i've attached some pictures.

 

[Axil]

Update:
Last night I was starting to lose hope as my poor hen looked absolutely miserable. She was making a lot of swallowing motions like she was struggling to keep the contents of her crop down, and was shaking as if she was freezing even though she is in a ~70 degree house.

This morning when i checked on her she stood up and took a few shallow sips of water. Then in the 15min or so it took me to get her meds ready she had drained the small bowl and passed a bit of that watery yellow substance. I gave her the meds, this time giving her a about 50% more than the recommended dosage. I still had to hold her beak open to administer it, which was much more difficult than last time due to her managing to yank her head back at the last second a couple times. I took that as a good sign.

So I'm hopeful again and so very thankful for the advice I've gotten in this thread. There is no doubt in my mind that she would have passed away had the treatment been delayed any longer. I realize she is still far from the finish line but I'm hopeful that she is finally moving in the right direction.

The chickens are my 9yr/o daughter's personal pets and trying to explain the situation to her has been absolutely heartbreaking. So thank you again for all the help, it makes me relieved beyond measure that I can tell her we are giving her pet the very best chance we can.

Apologies for the long winded post, chronicling this whole ordeal has made it helped me stay sane and confident I'm doing things the right way.

 

[Axil]

well i made it home and got the first dose in her. I'm kicking myself for not starting yesterday because the poor baby looks so much worse.

She refused to eat at all, and when i tried to get her beak open she expelled a bunch of black nasty smelling liquid. After that happened twice i decided that it was worth the risk to help her evacuate her crop. I used the technique of holding her beak facing the ground and before i could even touch her crop i got a big puddle of more liquid.

I repeated it once more this time giving her a little help rubbing her crop upwards and she released a little more. She's not completely empty by any means but after that i was able to push the little chunk of suppository into her beak and she swallowed it. I then held her back to my ear and listened for any sign of a rasp or other indication of fluid when she breathed and wasn't able to hear any. I'm hoping that means i didn't make things worse

i left a small amount of boiled egg in a bowl for her, and will check on her every so often to see if she's eaten it. If so i'll give her more, otherwise i'm afraid it's more likely to end up all over the kennel then in her beak.

I will continue to update as things develop.

 

[Axil]

I'm sorry to hear about your bad experience. I reeeaaallly didn't want to have to try and do that, but with her at the stage she couldn't open her mouth without leaking I felt I had no choice.

Time will tell if it ultimately made any difference. Since it's dark out I finally forced myself to stop checking on her every 15min and turned out the lights hoping she will feel better with some rest *fingers crossed*

 

[Axil]

Thanks, I'll mix her some of that in a bit. I've been offering boiled egg and a few layer pellets since last night. She looks at them like she wants to eat them, sometimes even halfheartedly pecks the bowl above where the food is, but wont eat it.

I will try yogurt again the night before last she went crazy for it, but that was prior to her downturn. Tofu I do not have but if the above doesn't work I'll get some.

I do understand that sometimes despite the very best care the outcome can be fatal, but I'm determined to make sure she does get the best care I can provide

Thank you again for your persistent guidance

 

[hayley3]

Awww, that is great news!

 

[Axil]

Welp, here is another update and it feels good to have some promising news to report.

I made her a little dish of water with the supplement pictured in my previous post. She gave it a long look, then cast a dubious eye my way. After i took a drop and tapped the end of her beak with it she must've decided raspberry flavoring wasn't so bad and took a few sips.

Spoiler

I'll keep an eye on the bowl and if she seems to be reluctant to continue drinking it i'll give her plain water again.

I then added glob of yogurt to a little bowl, mixed in some layer feed and offered it to her. She did the same deal where she seemed to want to eat it but wouldn't go for it. I held out a couple pellets in my hand and she immediately went to snap one up, but rather than swallow it seemed like she was trying to chew it then threw it across the cage at me. Then a light-bulb went off. I wondered if the issue is she wants to eat but feels like she can only get very small pieces down her throat. I took back the yogurt mix, waited until the pellets got really mushy then stirred them in really well with the yogurt. Again i had no luck until i physically stuck a small bit of yogurt onto the tip of her beak. After that she attacked the bowl with enthusiasm

Spoiler

After she ate she even felt well enough to clean her beak of the remaining yogurt. About halfway through her meal she leaked some putrid liquid out as she was trying to eat. I think i'm going to wait an hour or so before i offer more food in hopes her crop will empty a little more and minimize the risk of her choking.

She also picked at some of the smallest slivers of timothy hay. I'm assuming the small amount of fiber that's giving her can only help move things along. I don't expect she'll try and gorge herself on it and end up with more issues but i'll keep an eye out. I also saw a jet black stream of liquid poo come out of her. I'm not sure if black is better or worse than yellow but considering the droppings had pretty much stopped last night and today I take that as a promising sign.

 

[Axil]

Oops, forgot to add a couple pictures i took this morning. She spends about half her time laying down like she is in the pic. She often has her crop resting on the top of that 2x4 in front of her, perhaps it gives her some relief? The other half of the time she'll be standing. If I move her food or water she will walk after it which is an improvement over her first day where she didn't even want to stand more than a few seconds.

 

[Axil]

You really didn't kill your hen. It sounds like she had a gravely impacted crop that probably would have required surgery to clear. You merely hastened her to the end and it spared her further suffering.

Thanks, I just wanted to give her the best shot I could, and you guys helping me along allowed me to do that even though the outcome wasn't a happy one.

It always sucks to lose a bird, but at least now, you have picked up some knowledge on how to combat this kind of thing earlier, I always try to find a brighter side when loosing a hen

Yes. I'll definitely be able to setup a little triage better now that I've experienced it

 

[Eggcessive]

So sorry for your loss. For what it’s worth, I have also done the same thing, trying to clear a blockage, and the material was so thick, it was hard for my hen to breathe. I swept out her throat and she didn’t die then, but she died a few days later. She had a sour crop for weeks. When I have treated an impacted or sour crop, I have lost each one. Most times there is another reason for the crop disorder, such as a reproductive disorder, a gizzard problem, ascites, or cancer.