Sour Crop PLEASE HELP!!!!!!

[SeaChick]

Thanks everyone-

It's Envirogirl's mom here. We've done the upside-down massage thing a few times now and have fed her organic plain yogurt by pushing it alongside her beak with a baby-med syringe.... she's definitely less averse to swallowing it now and does seem perkier. We have her inside in a dog crate with a waterer of water/organic ACV, and some feed. WE'll try syringing the yogurt and some more water in the morning, and continue with the upside down massages as needed. It really does seem to help.

Thanks for all your concern. This is our absolute favorite most precious hen and she's been through so much already (long-time BYC-ers may remember when she swallowed Olivia's pearl earring as a chick well over a year ago!).

Thanks again-
Stacey

 

[veronica2368]

hi there,, i just took my hen pepper to the vet with a a sour/impacted crop. the vet ended up flushing her crop out 3 times and the first 2 times he got out some smushy stuff that smelled bad...well the third time he got out the stuff causing the problem. i am going to cut and paste the rest of my reply so you can read it all
......well she had an impacted crop. i took her to the vet this morning and he asked me....how long has her crop been swollen like this? and i said swollen?? well i had noticed it felt weird...soft and squishy yet there were some wiry things in there too. well he flushed her crop out 3 times (massagin it after the athe water went in i think the first and second only a little stuff came out and it was mushy stuff and it smelled bad...and the third time he got out what he called a "ton of stuff" hay, grass, straw, corn and assorted food...he said that it smelled horrible. really bad. well he put 25 cc's of mineral oil in her crop when he was done flushing ( he had flushed her with 50 cc's of water each flush and said that he did not get all of it out ...so some of it stayed in there so that will help with her dehydration because some of it went in her tummy. he also gave her antibiotics just in case some of it went into her trachea...just as a precaution. he had she was breathing good though. i have tgive her antibiotics for the next several day.

so hopefully this will be the cure for her. she has to be in the house for the weekend to be monitored and i have to feed her baby food and pedialyte. so hopefully she will perk up soon. oh and by te way she had lost weight over this before i realized it was heppening...she only weighed 3 pounds and some change.....cant recall the number....and she is a plymouth barred rock...and is 6 years old...so she was definitely not eating well....i'm just sorry i didnt catch it a little sooner.
i wonder why she got the blockage in the first place though.
so i am thinking there was a reason for the sour crop and in this case it was a blockage. i hope this helps with your hen....we love our hen "pepper" amd would hate to lose her. my dog vet also sees exotics...and she qualifies as a bird so he has seen other chicken of mine. i drove an hour to bring her there. and the visit cost me 137 dollars....including the antibiotics. so it wasnt as bad asit could have been. now he did say that he thinks he got the problem out,.....but there couldbe additionalblockage that he cant get to...causing the sour crop.....but our fingers are crossed that the problem was a lll of the hay and straw in there causing the problem. i hope this helps!
veronica

 

[veronica2368]

oh and each time he flushed he did it with 50 cc's each time. of water.

 

[SeaChick]

Hi everyone-
Just an update: we did turn Olympia upside down and get her to vomit a few times, and have been feeding plain organic yogurt, and I'm happy to report that she seems to be fine now!!! Hooray and thanks for your help.
Stacey

 

[fluffnstuff]

I had this problem with a few of my silkies. Give her some flattened coke a cola it will deteriate any food particals left( about 6cc to 10cc). Also make sure to give her some mineral oil(about 5cc) to help what ever might be plugged up in her. Then give her some plain yogurt to get the positive bacteria back into her system when she starts to act a little better. Hope this helps

 

[Akita]

Well, I really messed up last year when I tried to empty the crop. I think I did not hold the hen right and drowned her. So be careful.
Dorie

 

[daze333]

I have a young hen with this and I am going to try the coke trick! Thanks! I don't like the massaging thing. I tried it once and it killed the bird.