year old Chocolate Orpington, lethargic, all fluffed up

[NatJ]

I've taken her to the vet, who is levaging her crop (if it works it has to be better than surgery). I'll report back on the results.

How did it go?

 

[Nancy H]

Sad. She didn't make it. For either lavage or surgery they had to anesthetize her, and her heart couldn't take it -- she probably hadn't had any nutrition for days. The vet did a necropsy (why autopsy for humans and necropsy for non-humans?) and extracted the contents of the crop. I was sure she'd gotten into something like string or long grass or something that blocked her regular food from going into the gizzard, but there was nothing but her regular food and a few tiny pebbles she'd picked up, probably trying to make her system work. Somehow her whole digestive system just stopped working.

I learned from it. Check the crop immediately if you have a lethargic chicken and take action right away! BTW, the vet said she'd only seen this problem three times in 20 years, so it's uncommon.

 

[NatJ]

Sad. She didn't make it. For either lavage or surgery they had to anesthetize her, and her heart couldn't take it -- she probably hadn't had any nutrition for days. The vet did a necropsy (why autopsy for humans and necropsy for non-humans?) and extracted the contents of the crop. I was sure she'd gotten into something like string or long grass or something that blocked her regular food from going into the gizzard, but there was nothing but her regular food and a few tiny pebbles she'd picked up, probably trying to make her system work. Somehow her whole digestive system just stopped working.

I learned from it. Check the crop immediately if you have a lethargic chicken and take action right away! BTW, the vet said she'd only seen this problem three times in 20 years, so it's uncommon.

That's sad

But thank you for updating so we know what happened

Good question about necropsy and autopsy.
I had to look up autopsy. Turns out, it is something about seeing for one's self (auto- is the person performing it, -ops has to do with seeing.) So something like the doctor seeing for themself what caused the person to die.

Necropsy has the same "ops" that has to do with eyes or seeing, and necr- has to do with death or dead things.

I don't know why we use those words the way we do, but I can sort-of see why we use them both. One emphasizes the person doing the seeing (autopsy) while the other emphasizes what is being seen (the dead body, in a necropsy.)

 

[Nancy H]

Thank you very much, NatJ. It' great to be able to turn to this community when something unknown threatens the flock.