Bird not eating with very full crop

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chickenfan

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I have a young POL hen that has been off her food for a couple of days, pecking at food but not swallowing it. Now I notice on checking her crop again that it is very full and firm - like an orange, and slightly warm. She has lost a lot of weight. Has she got some sort of blockage and what do I do about it?
 
She has a digestive impaction Chickenfan. We've been plagued with them over the last year. Our latest patient is inside now -eating moulted feathers is the root cause in her case. They are now out but the rest of her system is still impacted with the buildup. If it is a partial impaction, so she is still pooing something, she has a chance.

Digestive impactions are usually ultimately fatal. The treatment is to syringe water in to break to material in the crop up and flush the system through. Plenty of crop massaging and keep her moving about. The crop will also go slightly sour and feel warm, so she will have noticeably bad breath. The water only treatment will deal with that. It all depends how long it takes for the blockage to clear verses how much energy the bird has left. Our two previously successful cases took a month. By that time they had lost half their bodyweight. This one has been three weeks and it doesn't look like she will make it. The reason she is inside is lack of energy is making her feel cold. The final stage is they go off their feet as they haven't the energy to stand.

Our treatment failures were impacted with long grass. I posted about it last year. The other I think was full of tumours, but she had a pendulous crop as well so was plagued with digestive issues and cankers may have been present. The important thing is to spot it early, so they have enough strength to last over the treatment. So good luck Chickenfan. Remember, water only, otherwise you will add to the impaction and make it worse. I hope they have been wormed recently, because they can be a root cause. They block the passage of small solid items that would normally go through -in our case it was a cherry stone.
 
Hi Chris, I have read that in the cases of solid impaction, it is also advisable to feed them some oil (for example, by means of pre-soaking a small bit of bread in it) as it will work as a lubricant to aid the passage of food. Have you tried this or is it a bad idea?
 
Hi kitty kat, thank you. I tried oil mixed with yogurt last night which she liked, and massaged her. It went from a hard ball to a ball that squished into various shapes and kept those shapes. She has drunk quite a lot of water with cider vinegar this morning. Now it is a more relaxed, softer ball, but it hasn't got any smaller and she is not interested in the yogurt this morning. She is due for worming, so perhaps this is the problem. She's not had any long grass, although she's had some fairly large chunks of maize in a mixed corn bag I had.

My inclination is to take her to to vet to operate before she loses any more weight - or is this risky? Has anyone had it done by a vet?
 
Firstly the oil is a good idea KittyKat, but not if the crop has gone sour as anything other than water fuels the sour crop in my experience. A warm crop says it has gone sour, which would be confirmed by smelly breath. Yoghurt is absolutely the wrong stuff to administer as it quicky goes off in the crop. We only give it to birds first thing in the morning now.

We avoid large chunks of maize Chickenfan. There was a case of digestive impaction on another forum due to gorging on canned sweetcorn. I don't think the condition is operable, but I'm not a vet. Quite possible a piece of maize has got jammed against a plug of worms in the lower intestine. First thing to do is worm her and that will have to be done by oral dosage, rather than on pellets. The vet may have something immediately effective, but in my experience the worms are killed on the first dose of Flubenvet. We have had an immediate result on many occasions. I don't know why they need another 6 days?
 
Thank you Chris for these helpful instructions which I will stick to in future. Unfortunately I have lost the bird as she didn't make it through recovery from general anaesthetic at the vet. He said there were three fistfulls of grass, corn and other stuff in her crop which took them 45 mins to remove (can't think why it took so long). I had asked for it to be done under local anaesthetic, which they tried initially. The operation has cost me £80 which I can't afford. He also thinks crop paralysis may be linked to marek's disease, although I have never had this.

I regret going to the vet as she had improved a lot from last night with the massage and oil. However it seems strange she should have had all these problems as a young bird with nothing particularly unusual in her crop, and no long grass.

I'm not sure how to sterilise the area she has been in if she could possibly have had Mareks. She was plump, fit and healthy a few days ago.
 
Vet has been looking in the wrong place. The blockage is further down in the Gizzard or lower intestine. They eat grass to clear worms or blockages, so a full crop is not the root cause. The problem will have occurred several weeks ago, you just didn't spot it Chickenfan. Very difficult to do unless you poo pick from under the perch every morning and can spot abnormal poos. You can't pick them up every day for inspection either.

They can pick up cigarette ends or bits of plastic or metal Chickenfan. You need to be sure the ranging area is clear of such objects if possible.
 
I feel awful as it sounds like this probably happened as I hadn't wormed her. What would you have seen in her poo Chris to indicate something was going wrong?

Do you think I could have saved her by retrospective worming and continuing the massage? I thought it would be fairly simple for the vet to sort her out and that I shouldn't delay because she had lost a lot of weight and the weekend coming.
 
I forgot to say Chris and others on the forum - thank you for always being there to offer so much help. It is an amazing forum, and such a generous bunch of people.
 
It might have happened because you hadn't wormed her Chickenfan. But that's not certain. Could be she ate something too big to pass through or indigestible or it could be tumours, which from my experience can be triggered at point of lay (Lymphoid Lucosis). Could she have gorged on long fresh grass and jammed the gizzard (fatal for both of ours)?

You would see very watery small poos or no poos at all. So incredibly difficult to spot. I would have treated as advised. To be fair, she would have had a far better chance of recovery in her physical condition with an empty crop because there is always the danger of dragging more indigestible stuff through. Our hen Ollie still has a full crop. She is passing far more poo now and is getting extra water, but she is still picking up grass which isn't helping. She is still running out of energy and still losing weight, so this may be one more battle we lose. How do you stop a hen eating feathers?

She may have gone the best way. It's not nice watching a hen wasting away over a month and finally collapsing, then having to despatch her.
 
Hi Chris,

I thought Lymphoid Leukosis was a rare disease. I had this in my flock when I was buying in POL birds - and all my young stock died. This is why I am aiming only to hatch my own birds and from my own cockerel.
 
It's not a disease as I would normally think of one. Not contagious but inbred to some extent- bit like cancer perhaps.

Anyway without a post-mortem you will never know. Highly unlikely and best give it no more thought Chickenfan.
 
Crop or for that matter gizzard impaction is something that just happens to affect certain chickens, apart from keeping young birds off long grass I don't personally believe there is a huge amount you can do about it prevention wise. With regards to a cure for crop impaction dipping the birds beak in olive oil to make it drink the oil followed by a crop massage has proved successful for me, in cases of gizzard impaction death is inevitable. Watery stools and lack of appetite are certain symptoms along with the sick chicken posture. At the risk of being harsh I believe that the vast majority of vets are no better than snake oil merchants when it comes to chickens, they really don't have a clue as in agricultural terms chickens are expendable, if you are a farmer and you have a sick chicken you just neck it, so they have no real experience of treating chicken disorders. Almost every post I see on this forum where someone has engaged the services of a vet seems to involve a prescription of antibiotics along with a vague (and unlikely) diagnosis with a hope that the former will prove successful, often concluding with the sick chicken being pts. I am very sorry for your loss chickenfan you did everything that you could, I don't think that you did anything wrong, my first experience of chicken keeping was losing a bird after only three days to a compacted gizzard from long grass, I don't even know if it was from my garden or where she had come from, effectively the first thing I learned about chickens was how to dispatch them.
 
Yes, I am plagued with making the wrong decision of taking her to the vet. She was improving on the oil and yogurt and beginning to look much more comfortable. She was a beautiful bird and trusted me. They were adamant it was a minor procedure with little risk and needed doing in their operating slot before the weekend. Do they normally recover with the massage treatment? I really wish I had stuck with this but was worried about her weight loss.
 
Depends how bad the impaction is Chickenfan. Grass impaction of the gizzard is complete blockage and fatal. But if they are pooing something, so the impaction is not total they have a fair chance of recovery with water, perhaps oil and massage. It takes a long time and the bird needs to keep moving about -it's that movement that gets the internal blockage free. Depending on what is in the crop it is possible to flush it out somewhat to remove the stuff going sour due to slow digestive transit i.e. sitting in the crop too long and rotting. The sourness is a problem in itself and if you can't get enough water through to flush it out then the bird will die. It is an energy balance really, depending on the birds condition depends if it can keep moving. We are risking feeding our Ollie fine ground mash now. She wants to eat, still has a solid crop full of grass I assume, but is feeling the cold so is nearly at an end. We hope the mash will give her enough energy to keep going, but the danger is she will block up completely. Good news this morning is she has done half a dozen small but normal looking poos. So she'll get more mash, extra water 3 times a day and we'll continue with the massaging. Of course now her sour crop is returning because we are feeding her, so we may have to switch back to just water and then that will be the end. We can still flush her crop though but it will be impeded by the solid plug of 'grass' that's still in there, so we have to make a fine judgement. By the end of the week it will be a month of treatment. She will be cured or dead.
 
Very good luck with Ollie Chris. I really hope she pulls through. I'm glad to have all your tips to know what to do in future. By flushing with water, do you mean getting her to drink more?
 
Basically you syringe in water gently, giving them time to swallow, otherwise they choke. About 50mL total a day divided in three lots is what we give. They will drink on their own, but not enough. We are aiming to soften the contents of the crop by over-watering.

Ollie is fine now. She poo'd big time just after my last post and has now eaten and is running around half an acre eating small slugs and beetles. Her system is in good shape so the blockage must have been near the crop. Her gizzard is working properly- they usually poo sludge for a while until the muscles recover. She is moving her reduced crop on her own in an attempt to break the last of the lump up, so the muscles were not damaged. I expect her to be her usual fat feisty self in a month or so. Next problem is a Wyandotte who had sour crop. Sorted in the end with Epsom salts but now she has forgotten about the need to eat!!
 
Glad to hear about Ollie, Chris.
Good luck with the Wyandotte. I guess bribery with mealworms or grapes will get her eating again?
 
Do you think my bird would have got better if I hadn't taken her to the vet? Her crop had become much softer.
 
I did think an operation was rather radical, but as my previous post, it might have helped Chickenfan. I didn't think the crop was the problem as said, just a symptom. By your description of her she was already very thin, so not much left to work with. Softening the crop is, in my experience, the start of a long regime of exercise. At that stage it could still have been worms? I very much doubt your hen would have had the energy to go through it and perhaps you wouldn't have the several hours a day needed either?
 
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