swollen crop - - is it impacted? ?

[rcentner]

yogurt cant hurt, so if she will eat it then give it to her, avoid the bread soaked in oil...that's not necessary.

use 1 tbsp per gallon of water of ACV, this you can do as long as you want.....are you using the all natural stuff with the "mother" in it? that stuff has all natural enzymes that are helpful.

massage is only necessary if it is impacted. If it is impacted you will feel stuff caught up in there, in a large ball and it will be hard.

impaction can lead to sour crop, but it is not always one before the other. They can have just sour crop without impaction. If there is no hard mass in the crop then I would say it us not impacted.
sour crop is when the acid and bacteria balance are off and cause yeast (fungi) to build up. Yogurt and ACV work for me for sour crop. I give yogurt 2 times a day for 3-4 days and the acv in the water for atleast a week, but you can use ACV all the time if you want


*edit - If she doesn't eat the yogurt on her own I have had success dipping the beak in the yogurt (careful not to get it in/on her nostrils) then some will accidentally get in her mouth and she gets little bits of it whether she likes it or not.

 

[math ace]

Yesterday she refused to eat - - - yougurt, unsweetend applesauce or oil soaked bread.
I did get her to eat a couple of scambled eggs.

When I massage her - - - stinky gas comes out.
I don't smell it coming from her mouth . It doesn't smell "sour".
It smells like really bad Farts.

I did give her 1/4 tsp mylanta. Maybe it will help her belly feel better.

 

[math ace]

Here is my own little Bump . . . ..

 

[math ace]

So at the end of Day 2 of treatment, she had only ate 1 scambled egg and would not touch anything else.

So, last night I opened a CAN of WET cat food. Used a fork and mashed it up really really good. She ate the whole can of food.

I gave her mylanta last night again too. So, she had 1/4 tsp in the morning and 1/4 tsp at night.

TODAY is DAY 3 of treatment and DAY 4 since noticing the swollen crop. She has done almost no pooping during that time.

SHE just flooded her cage with poop. I think we are on the up side now.

IT smells horrid - - - like spoiled grease

I am scambling her an egg for breakfast.
I guess I will keep feeding her egg and WET cat food for
the next couple of days while she gives her crop a chance to recover.

 

[RhodeIslandRedFan]

math ace - It sounds like you and your hen are making progress! This is really good news!! Has the swelling in her crop gone down? I've seen posts on this site warning about feeding too much cat food because of the high salt content, but IDK how much is too much. Maybe you should do a search on this site just in case? I'll be waiting for you to post more good news lol

 

[ipana]

math ace...
I'm glad your hen seems to be making progress although it sounds as though she may have sour crop. The squishy crop is generally a sign. There may not be any sour smell until the feed in her crop has soured. The important thing is for the bird to have nutrition. I can't say about the cat food although I think I had read somewhere that cat food and dog food are not good for chickens. Anyway, if she's pooping, that's a good thing as it means she is getting some food through from her crop and she is getting some nutrition.

I've had a hen who suffered with sour crop for several weeks until I finally found out that any kind of grass caused her crop to be unable to empty properly. It should empty overnight so that it feels flat in the mornings. So, that being said, if you can isolate this bird so that you can observe her poop and monitor her eating. Do not give her any pellets or hard food of any kind. Instead, offer her scrambled eggs (as you have done) and applesauce. Baby food is also good. Mine seemed to like the ham and gravy! Anyway, offer her food several times a day if you can to see if she'll eat.

If she is not eating, you will need to get a feeding tube so that you can get something into her and it is also helpful to use the feeding tube to "flush" the crop. A size 12 french is the size you will need. Put the feeding tube on the outside of her body, beside the hen's neck and put a mark with a sharpie or permanent marker of some kind so that you will know when you have inserted it far enough. To insert the feeding tube into the crop, hold the hen in your lap and use your index finger to pull up on her beak to open her mouth. As you see her tongue, put the feeding tube on top of her tongue and slowly feed it down her throat into her crop. When her get to the mark you made on the tube, you know you have it in far enough. Fill a 60 cc syringe with water. Attach the feeding tube to the 60cc syringe and slowly push the plunger to get the 60cc of water into the crop. Massage the crop. Hold the hen upside down so that she cannot lift her head up. If she lifts her head up, the liquid coming out will pool in her mouth and she will aspirate it and could die. You must keep her head from lifting up. Massage the crop while she is upside down to get as much of the liquid out as you can. By the time you get to the end, you should see whatever is causing the problem...grass, feathers, etc...coming out of her mouth. If nothing comes out, do the 60 cc water into the crop again. I have done it as many as 5 times during a "session" to get out the junk. Once you feel you have gotten everything out, let her rest with no food or water for 2-3 hours. Then, offer her only soft food...no pellets or chicken feed, etc. She will need to be on the soft food for a couple of days once she starts eating. If she doesn't eat, then dilute some baby food with water in a 3:1 ratio with the baby food being the most and use the feeding tube to get it into her crop. You'll need to feed her like this every 4-5 hours during the daytime until she starts eating on her own.

Once she starts eating the soft food and can do that eagerly at each feeding, then begin adding a few crumbles to the soft food to get her adjusted back to regular food. This whole process will take 4-5 days so be prepared.

If this doesn't make any sense to you, let me know. PM me if you have specific questions. I can say that everytime I see my little hen who had such a hard time with this, I am totally delighted that she survived. I had this hen inside my house several times. I would get her "fixed up" and then, boom, her crop would fill after a couple of days. I was at my wit's end until I finally figured out that she could not have even one blade of grass. Once I took her off all grass, she has been just fine. If you can get your hen fixed up this time, try to figure out what caused her problem. If you see a lot of grass coming out as you cause her to vomit, that may be her problem, too.

One additional thing I would mention here. I did the crop surgery on my little hen, too. It only helped for the moment so I would not recommend doing the surgery. I learned that by flushing out her crop, she would get better. I only kick myself for not realizing it was the grass all along. I could've prevented her a lot of misery and prevented my misery, too.

I hope this helps and you can get her back. If anyone reading this topic has a bird with sour crop and you want more info, please PM me. Believe me, I've been there and I'd surely be glad to help anyone who needs assistance on this. These birds can be saved.

 

[math ace]

She has been isolated since I noticed the swollen crop 4 days ago.

I only went to canned cat food because she was refusing to eat the scambled eggs, yougurt, and applesauce.
At the point, I thought eating was better than not eating.

I suspect that the canned cat food has quite a bit of oil in it and worked to lubricate everything. . . The next day the cage was full of stinking poop!

Today she ate 2 scambled eggs and 2 small cans of cat food. . . . Tonight, I gave her raimen noodles ( no seasoning ) chopped up real fine. She ate 1/4 cup of the noodles.

So, I think we are on the way back to health. She still won't touch the yougurt.. . .

I don't have any baby food - - - tomorrow, I have to go into town and I'll pick up a couple of jars and try them out on her.
This is the best that she has ate in 4 days - - -So I am thrilled with her progress.

I didn't actually feel her crop today. It looked smaller. I didn't give her any mylanta today either. . .
I'll check her in the morning before I feed her. If she is all squishy still then I'll give her the mylanta again.

She had stinky gas over the last few days while I was massaging her crop . . . Poor baby, you know her belly had to be hurting !

 

[RhodeIslandRedFan]

Please tell us how your hen is doing. Is her crop back to normal yet?

 

[math ace]

I got the crop back to normal size and fed her scambled eggs and canned cat food for a day.

The next day I did scambled eggs and chick starter soaked in Milk.
I fed her chick starter soaked in milk for 24 hours. Then crop swelled back up.

I guess she wasn't ready for it yet

She is back on just scambled eggs. She is eating, drinking and pooping. She is even laying eggs.

HOWEVER, her crop is still swelled for about 2 days now. She is having muscle spasms in her crop area.
This morning it was in the crop area and now it is in the throat area.

I THINK she might be trying to throw up the blockage. I felt her chest and it is very pliable.

I will just have to see how she is doing tomorrow.

 

[RhodeIslandRedFan]

I'm sorry to hear you had a set-back- I was hoping for better news. I've no experience with this so I have no advice to offer you

But I hope you are able to pull her through this! Good luck to you both!