Chicken with Crop Impaction -- Treatment?

[BarbaricYawp]

On Tuesday of last week I noticed one of my daughters pet chickens looking ruffled and unhappy. The weather turned very cold that week, unexpectedly quickly, and daughter hadn’t put the heated waterer out for the chickens yet, so I chalked her appearance up to lack of drinking enough. We installed the waterer and everyone seemed reasonably happy so I thought no more of it until the next day when Mr BY came in and announced that he thought one of the chickens was dying. We finally located her in the corner of the chicken house, legs up and to all appearances, dead. I sent DD into the chicken house (a tight squeeze for adults) to retrieve the bird, and she emerged and announced that the chicken was still alive. Bird was duly transported to the human house, placed in a milk crate with towels and a hot water bottle and force fed water. During the course of this we discovered a VERY distended crop so I’m operating under the assumption that she has an impaction at this point.

Ran to Southern States to get grit, which we mixed into her food. After a day or so she seemed better, could keep eyes open, was eating and drinking on her own. We moved her to the bathtub, on newspapers, so she wouldn’t get pasty butt but would remain warm. Her crop seems to have shrunk some, but it is still pronounced and the hen is very weak. She will stand continuously but loses her balance easily. She is a little chatty and seems alert when people come into the room, but droops after a few minutes of attentiveness. Yesterday was mild and I tried putting her back outside in the coop to see if the cool weather would perk her up. She did immediately eat at the feeder but about 15 minutes later I heard an almighty squawk and ran back to see her splayed on the ground. I’m assuming one of the other hens pecked her on the head because her comb looked a little redder than usual. Back to the house and the bathtub.

I wanted to see if anyone else has dealt successfully with this issue. The hen is pretty young (18 months) and seems to be fighting, but the fact that she is so weak after almost 7 days really concerns me. Some websites are saying to oil her (force feed olive oil), others are saying it doesn’t work. Are there any other remedies that I should be considering or is this a lost cause and am I just prolonging the inevitable?

[RacetrackReject]

Go to backyard chickens (it’s a forum) and do a search. They have a ton of information on this, along with step by step instructions of how to intervene surgically.

[BarbaricYawp]

Yeah, I did look there. there was a ferocious debate on whether or not to oil on one of the threads. I think I’m going to try to oil her tonight and see if she looks better tomorrow night. If not, we may have to resort to the surgical approach.

[cowboymom]

No no, I’d hold off on the oil, it’s hard to force feed a chicken and if she gets it into her lungs she’s toast.

It can be a sour crop too and then you get people recommending vinegar or baking soda, (thinking to change the pH)…that’s a crossroads that you’ll have to decide, I’m a little more pro baking soda but you make the call on that one.

Are you massaging it? I’d stop feeding her anything but liquid, as nutritious as you can make it… it’s too late for the grit probably, try to just soften the mass up. She’s still pooping? Sometimes you can just “milk” that mass up and out…

Thing is, chickens present like that pretty much no matter what is wrong with them. It can be a terminal disease, it can be heart problems, toxicity, just about anything.

Honestly, you’re probably prolonging the inevitable BUT to my mind, if it’s inevitable I like to try. If you’re comfortable with the “surgery” I think it’s a viable choice. In desperate times we’ve just stuck a lamb with a needle in the side to relieve bloat-sometimes you really do just go after it and they’re ok.

Good luck-it’s no fun especially when a kid is involved!

[BarbaricYawp]

In researching the difference between impaction and sour crop it doesn’t seem like she has the symptoms of the sour crop. Her crop is rock hard, she isn’t pooping much and I don’t smell anything unusual/see any sign of drooling or vomiting. We didn’t massage it (frankly I wasn’t sure if it would be painful for her) but I will try that tonight. We DID force a lot of water when we first brought her in, and that seemed to help a lot. cowboymom, if you have seen this before, how long after it ‘resolved’ did it take for the chicken to regain strength? I know we haven’t entirely fixed this yet, but I’m really bothered by how weak this hen is. Perhaps I’m expecting too much too soon?

[cowboymom]

That weakness isn’t uncommon… in my experience they rebound pretty quickly…

If you can dribble water into her and then try to massage and break up that lump that’s probably the best thing you can do at this point. She will soak up some of the water and it can help break down the mass with some gentle massaging.

You can add sugar to gatorade/somesuch and use that instead too; in my experience just getting fluids into them helps a ton.

Isn’t it horribly tempting to just cut it out?? I hate when you know the problem is just right in there and you can’t get it…

You might cross post this on the Around the Farm forum on here too, lots of chicken people there.

[BarbaricYawp]

[QUOTE=cowboymom;7287315]
T
You might cross post this on the Around the Farm forum on here too, lots of chicken people there.[/QUOTE]

Good idea. As you can tell, we treat everything like pets vs ‘farm critters’. Our chickens are ‘farmily’

[cowboymom]

I totally understand! My chickens are mostly pets too!

[J-Lu]

[QUOTE=cowboymom;7287393]
I totally understand! My chickens are mostly pets too![/QUOTE]
I may be too late… But…it sounds like your chicken is very dehydrated (hence the hard crop). My suggestion is to get a 10cc syringe and fit a 3-4" piece of soft tubing on it. First, feed 10 cc warm Pedialyte (children’s fluids - vitamin filled) every 2-3 hours for about a half a day (more if the crop empties fast). This will require you holding your bird under your left arm, prying her mouth open with your right hand, and inserting the tube down her throat by placing it against her cheek and GENTLY down the throat and into the crop (not the trachea, which is easily visibly at the base of the tongue). There should be no resistance and be GENTLE. You can palpate the crop and feel the tube in the crop. Give the 10cc. After a couple of hydration feedings, you can feed 10cc of Ensure (NOT ensure plus) every few hours. Depending on the size of your bird, you can give maybe 20 or 30 cc, gently palpate the crop to see how distended it gets. Ensure is an enteral designed to deliver easily digestible calories to elderly humans. It has glucose and vitamins and is excellent for recovery. When your bird is perky and recovered, offer her regular food and keep her in a warm area until she’s fully recovered. Where did I get this from? I used to direct a wildlife rehabilitation program that specialized in birds. I’ve treated lots of birds in a similar condition (even seed-eaters like chickens) and had great success hydrating first with pedialyte and then delivering maintenance calories with Ensure. Ensure Plus is a good boost but can be dehydrating because it his a relatively high osmolarity. (Ensure is isotonic and therefore doesn’t draw fluid from the vasculature to the gut). I hope things went well for your chicken.