Using Metoclopramide (Reglan) to treat impacted crop

[Jenski]

There are an awful lot of folk remedies for impacted crops, some of which have a questionable success rate. Olive oil-bread / gentle massage seems to be a pretty popular first-line treatment, although I do not see a consistent record of success (some of which may depend on how quickly the problem is caught, and what caused the impaction).

Some treatments, like the baking soda or epsom salt wash, even have many incidences of death associated with them. Some, like surgery, are simply a last resort in my book. (However, the 1990s-era Gail Damerow handbook even recommends crop surgery as the primary treatment for impaction!)

There has to be a better way to handle impacted crop.

There is relatively little information floating around on using Metoclopramide injections to treat impacted crop. Here is the basic information on this drug, which appears to stimulate peristalsis in the lower digestive system ~

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metoclopramide

I noticed BYC Moderator allen wranch kindly posted a treatment description using this on this thread ~

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=664241#p664241


Is there anyone else out there who has successfully used this drug to treat impacted crop? Any noticeable or concerning side effects?

And most importanty ~ is there any reason why we shouldn't get this drug from our vets and keep it in our poultry first aid kits?

Thanks for any input.


Jen in TN
~:<>

 

[Three Cedars Silkies]

Well, it works for gastroparesis in humans! If it doesn't harm chickens, then I'm sure it would stimulate peristalsis in the crop and help them empty it.

You can get it is pills also. For a chicken that has chronic crop problems, you could probably give it to them daily to keep it moving.

 

[Jenski]

There is a lot more talk today about impacted crop surgery ~ both from the newbies preparing to take this on, and from the brave souls who have given this treatment a shot.

Is there anyone online tonight who has used the metoclopramide (Reglan) before resorting to surgery? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

 

[WoodlandWoman]

I guess I don't see where that would help a chicken with a crop stuffed full of long, coarse straw? For those chickens, it's more like a mechanical blockage. That's very different than the issues people have with gastric motility.

If a chicken hasn't eaten much of the offending item, other foods that would normally pass might get backed up. I can see where some of the impacted crop treatments might help with that secondary problem.

For the rare chicken that has trouble emptying their crop when they are only eating a normal diet, this might help a lot. I think it would just depend on the cause of the problem.

 

[biddy and butch 1941]

I have had cochin bantams for many years and I have Ms. Darrows book. Many of my chickens are over ten years old. I have over the years lost some to an impacked crop. Often I don't know why something dies. It is only one at a time and not often. I do from time to time treat for coccidia just in case. Many years ago when I first started I had a hen with a impacked crop. I took it to the zoo's old vet and he said to forget it.
I do try by trial and error. I can often keep a chicken alive for several weeks. I even tube feed, treats and wet mash. Heat if necessary.
Now a young hen wasn't acting right. She was also light in weight. I ivermectin, then electrolyted her orally and then coccidia treatment. Her crop was not very distended but I could feel grain in it and it felt like pizza dough. She had a head tilt and was mouth breathing. No bad stool or mucous. All I had was reglan. So I felt I had nothing to lose as she got in a fetal position. I gave her 1cc of reglan two times a day. I also started syringe feeding. I did this also two times a day for several days. Then I also started tube feeding 45cc of baby peas and blendered cream corn. I did this four times a day for several days. She is now gaining weight and moving like a chicken. She is now eating some on her own so I only tube feed her two times a day now. This has taken nearly three weeks but it is looking good. I think the reglan did the trick plus the tube feeding. I use a small size aquarium tubbing tube and a 60cc syringe.

 

[medusine]

Adding to this old thread in case it is helpful for somebody else down the line...

I have found ONE vet in my area who'll treat chickens. After a televet consult, she's recommended Metoclopramide for my hen with a slow crop. She's a Brahma, almost 2 years old.

A week ago the bird was acting sick (slow to come out of the roost in the morning, sitting in a corner not moving...) and I felt that her crop had not emptied overnight; seemed to have a fair bit in it (but soft like a beanbag, not hard & distended). I put her in sick bay for the morning but by the time the vet got back to me, the hen was acting normal again AND started to eat the bedding in the cage, so I let her back out to range with the others to avoid making matters worse. The next few days, husband was on morning duty & he said he was pretty sure her crop was empty each day; so I thought "false alarm / brief blockage that resolved itself".

HOWEVER,
A) the vet recommended Metaclopramide & liquid diet for 2 weeks even if the hen seemed better, saying if the crop is emptying, the liquid diet is the most important thing (more than the Metaclopramide); because unless the underlying cause is nerve damage, we want to make sure the crop returns to its normal size & does its job of contracting; and we do this by ensuring for a while that it doesn't get overstretched.

(FML because I hate to keep a bird locked up indoors when she seems perky & wants to run around with the others)

and B) as of a couple of mornings ago when I've checked her crop first thing in the morning, it has NOT felt fully empty. Back to squishy beanbag feeling (like there are some grains or pebbles along with soft matter in there--not super big, and not hard, but definitely not fully emptying overnight! I was wondering if maybe she's just eating some bedding material in the mornings before I let them out of the roost, so I kept her in the (now bedding-free) cage last night, and unfortunately, she STILL had stuff in her crop this morning. ****.

Per the vet, Metaclopramide injection is most effective, but I am a big weenie and also just SUPER freaking busy right now, like it's just terrible timing, so I got the oral version instead (a liquid not pill).

I didn't get detailed instructions on how to administer, so that's what I'm working to figure out now. Presumably I'm meant to use the little needle-less syringe to squirt it down her throat (I have found & will study a diagram of how to avoid sending it down the windpipe-hole in her mouth). But again, I'm a weenie... if I can get away with putting it in her water that would be better, but I guess then it's really hard to ensure she'll get the right dose...

For the liquid diet the vet gave me Harrison's Recovery formula. So far the hen is not much tempted to eat it. Maybe when she gets hungrier...

Oh and she is Marek's vaccinated, so it's not that.

 

[FowlRancher]

Great thread, good info!!

 

[medusine]

Thanks!

Update re: delivery method for the oral Metoclopramide, I had missed the instructions on the bottle - you just squirt the 1.5 mg dose on some crumbs of torn-up bread (not much bread, a couple teaspoons' worth does it). It says put the crumbs in the bird's beak, but my hen just gobbled them up out of the bowl, no problem.

However, I never got her to take the liquid recovery diet. She ate a little if I mixed it with their regular mash crumbles, but I was having to mix so much mash in that it seemed like it might defeat the purpose. Eventually around day 2 she started getting REALLY agitated in her solitary cage, and I was worried that she needed to lay an egg but might be holding it in, due to the cage being too different from her nesting boxes. Cleaning the cage was also going to be really difficult, since I couldn't use bedding that she might eat. I wiped up poops as I saw them if I could, but sometimes she stepped in them first, & when I'd go in with the paper towel she was trying desperately to eat it...

I figured between the poop all over her feet, the laying issue, and the stress of confinement when she wasn't acting sick but wanted to be out doing regular chicken stuff (plus hunger, as I was only offering the "Recovery Diet" stuff that she didn't seem to recognize as food)--all told, I was worried that keeping her in the cage to keep trying the liquid diet could do more harm than good. Perhaps I should have nutted up and tried tube feeding, maybe she'd have settled back down if she wasn't getting hungry, but again... I'm not confident that my clumsy amateur attempts there, might not do more harm than good.

So she's back out with the others, eating what she wants, and I'm crossing my fingers that things clear up with the Metoclopramide only. It's not like she's on death's door right now (knock wood). She's eating and pooping and running around acting perky as ever. There's just that one worrisome thing where I don't think her crop is FULLY empty in the morning (though I haven't been feeling little lumps of stuff in it like there were originally). It's not like a big doughy water-balloon, it just doesn't seem as flat as her flockmates' first thing in the AM. Considering trying a crop bra--like maybe it's just a teensy bit pendulous?

Could it just be because she's such a big slow bird (Brahma) and I'm inexperienced? Like maybe I just am feeling an empty crop, and it's a little bigger than the others' due to her size, and I only think the other birds' empty crops that I'm comparing to, are more completely flat, simply because they're smaller & also tend to squirm away more quickly from my half-assed morning exams?

 

[TinaRew]

Thanks!

Update re: delivery method for the oral Metoclopramide, I had missed the instructions on the bottle - you just squirt the 1.5 mg dose on some crumbs of torn-up bread (not much bread, a couple teaspoons' worth does it). It says put the crumbs in the bird's beak, but my hen just gobbled them up out of the bowl, no problem.

However, I never got her to take the liquid recovery diet. She ate a little if I mixed it with their regular mash crumbles, but I was having to mix so much mash in that it seemed like it might defeat the purpose. Eventually around day 2 she started getting REALLY agitated in her solitary cage, and I was worried that she needed to lay an egg but might be holding it in, due to the cage being too different from her nesting boxes. Cleaning the cage was also going to be really difficult, since I couldn't use bedding that she might eat. I wiped up poops as I saw them if I could, but sometimes she stepped in them first, & when I'd go in with the paper towel she was trying desperately to eat it...

I figured between the poop all over her feet, the laying issue, and the stress of confinement when she wasn't acting sick but wanted to be out doing regular chicken stuff (plus hunger, as I was only offering the "Recovery Diet" stuff that she didn't seem to recognize as food)--all told, I was worried that keeping her in the cage to keep trying the liquid diet could do more harm than good. Perhaps I should have nutted up and tried tube feeding, maybe she'd have settled back down if she wasn't getting hungry, but again... I'm not confident that my clumsy amateur attempts there, might not do more harm than good.

So she's back out with the others, eating what she wants, and I'm crossing my fingers that things clear up with the Metoclopramide only. It's not like she's on death's door right now (knock wood). She's eating and pooping and running around acting perky as ever. There's just that one worrisome thing where I don't think her crop is FULLY empty in the morning (though I haven't been feeling little lumps of stuff in it like there were originally). It's not like a big doughy water-balloon, it just doesn't seem as flat as her flockmates' first thing in the AM. Considering trying a crop bra--like maybe it's just a teensy bit pendulous?

Could it just be because she's such a big slow bird (Brahma) and I'm inexperienced? Like maybe I just am feeling an empty crop, and it's a little bigger than the others' due to her size, and I only think the other birds' empty crops that I'm comparing to, are more completely flat, simply because they're smaller & also tend to squirm away more quickly from my half-assed morning exams?

Whatever happened with her? Did her crop ever go down? Did the med end up working?

 

[FreedomGalTx]

There are an awful lot of folk remedies for impacted crops, some of which have a questionable success rate. Olive oil-bread / gentle massage seems to be a pretty popular first-line treatment, although I do not see a consistent record of success (some of which may depend on how quickly the problem is caught, and what caused the impaction).

Some treatments, like the baking soda or epsom salt wash, even have many incidences of death associated with them. Some, like surgery, are simply a last resort in my book. (However, the 1990s-era Gail Damerow handbook even recommends crop surgery as the primary treatment for impaction!)

There has to be a better way to handle impacted crop.

There is relatively little information floating around on using Metoclopramide injections to treat impacted crop. Here is the basic information on this drug, which appears to stimulate peristalsis in the lower digestive system ~

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metoclopramide

I noticed BYC Moderator allen wranch kindly posted a treatment description using this on this thread ~

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=664241#p664241


Is there anyone else out there who has successfully used this drug to treat impacted crop? Any noticeable or concerning side effects?

And most importanty ~ is there any reason why we shouldn't get this drug from our vets and keep it in our poultry first aid kits?

Thanks for any input.


Jen in TN
~:<>

My Blondie is currently at the Vet with Reglan injection for impacted crop. The only thing the Vet says he has successfully treated with. The earlier the BETTER. We are currently waiting to see if it works. She showed symptoms 3days ago. Oil did not work. He said it likely started 8 days ago. My husband has been rushing in at night with no regard to grit. He is no longer allowed to put them up at night.