Slow moving crop on antibiotics

[icy_flames]

I have a two and a half year old hen who is on a couple antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory for aspiration pneumonia. 3 pills twice a day. 2 pills she has been on 10 days. 1 pill, the doxycycline, we started this past tuesday. Her crop has been slow for a week today.

We are about halfway done with the prescribed timeline for meds but I did notice her crop start to not empty maybe 48 hours after starting the medication? There is still a small baseball size bump in the AM. Not too hard not squishy. Just there. My avian vet insists antibiotics would not do that.

She does poop. It's a combination of diarrhea poop and then last night she did do a small solid poop so things are moving. I can certainly do the coconut oil treatment and try to massage it down. Wanted to see if anyone else had seen this. Antibiotics kill both good and bad bacteria. It makes sense to me her digestive system would be totally out of whack right now.

 

[Shadrach]

I have a two and a half year old hen who is on a couple antibiotics and an anti-inflammatory for aspiration pneumonia. 3 pills twice a day. 2 pills she has been on 10 days. 1 pill, the doxycycline, we started this past tuesday. Her crop has been slow for a week today.

We are about halfway done with the prescribed timeline for meds but I did notice her crop start to not empty maybe 48 hours after starting the medication? There is still a small baseball size bump in the AM. Not too hard not squishy. Just there. My avian vet insists antibiotics would not do that.

She does poop. It's a combination of diarrhea poop and then last night she did do a small solid poop so things are moving. I can certainly do the coconut oil treatment and try to massage it down. Wanted to see if anyone else had seen this. Antibiotics kill both good and bad bacteria. It makes sense to me her digestive system would be totally out of whack right now.

The crop is quite a delicate organ for what often gets dismissed as a storage pouch. It is also, along with the poop, one of the better indicators of a chickens health.
Digestion starts in the crop. It uses bacteria as part of the digestive process. I haven't had a lot of experience using antibiotics. In general I try to avoid them for myself and the chickens.
The few of chickens I've known who had antibiotics prescribed and adminstered all developed crop problems. Live yogurt can help as can pro biotics but when faced with a slow crop keeping food moving through it, if necessary with say coconut oil and massage, is about all one can do until the course is finished.

 

[coach723]

Do you know what caused the pneumonia? Just wondering if she was having crop issues before and that's how she aspirated. Yes, antibiotics can upset the balance in the gut, and sometimes make them a little bit down. You can give her probiotics while on antibiotics without doing any harm or interfering with the meds. Just give the probiotics between meds rather than at the same time. If you give them at the same time the antibiotics will negate them. They will still be attenuated by the antibiotics until those are completed, but at least some might help. You can use an animal probiotic, like Pro Bios, or a human one, doesn't matter. Sav-a-chick also makes one you can mix in the drinking water.
You can also do coconut oil and massage to see if you can break it up some and get it to pass. If she's not drinking well, she may be dehydrated which will just make it worse.

 

[icy_flames]

The crop is quite a delicate organ for what often gets dismissed as a storage pouch. It is also, along with the poop, one of the better indicators of a chickens health.
Digestion starts in the crop. It uses bacteria as part of the digestive process.
The few of chickens I've known who had antibiotics prescribed and adminstered all developed crop problems.

Agree! I think I saw one website briefly talk about digestion starting in the crop. It's always categorized to just hold food with no break down activity taking place whatsoever. I tried to not discount what the vet said but there's just no way these occurrences were not tied together. My girl has never had a crop problem.

 

[icy_flames]

Do you know what caused the pneumonia? Just wondering if she was having crop issues before and that's how she aspirated.

I think she got either some dirt/sand or food stuck in her lungs and it slowly brewed into an infection This happened a couple weeks ago. My flock was given treats on the ground and she appeared to suck one up too fast and was sneezing a lot to clear. As days went by I could tell something was off. I'd pick her up and she'd let out a huge breath. There was one evening had two birds sitting on my lap, she wanted to jump up and missed. The flapping of her wings and landing took so much energy and air of out her. Then she began to sit puffed up with one eye closed daily and take very deep breaths, not the whole day but enough times to cause massive concerns.

Went to vet last friday. She had bloodwork done, an x-ray, ultrasound, complete physical exam. It was advised she may have heart issues. The x-ray was the winning diagnostic. Could see the scar tissue in the lungs. Ultrasound ruled out heart disease, cancer, and any reproductive issues.

I will definitely try starting a probiotic, maybe the sav a chick so the whole flock can benefit.

 

[coach723]

Glad you had a vet that was able to do so much for diagnosis so you have answers, that's awesome. The probiotics certainly won't hurt anything.