Impacted crop?

Marigold

Marigold

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Marigold, my Buff Sussex, isn't quite herself at present, a bit listless. She recovered from her latest go at being broody after 3 nights in the sin bin, 10 days ago, and hasn't laid since. Not surprising, as she's also still growing feathers after a partial moult of her neck and wing. Thus comb not as red as usual. Is drinking OK, but I don't think she shows her usual keenness to eat, although she goes for cabbage trimmings and grazes the (short) grass when they are let out into the enclosed grass run. Apparently not interested much in pellets, even when made into a nice damp crumbly mash, and lets the younger girls get to the plate without bothering to push in.
Her droppings have had a sort of turquoise frosting on them for a few days now, sort of like a lichen colour, which doesn't show up very clearly in the pic, and this was what she produced overnight in the coop
Marigolds poo 001 (640x480).jpg

The little straw-coloured bits are Aubiose from the coop bedding, but the rest seems to be undigested seeds from the Garvo Alfamix I gave them for tea yesterday, plus vegetable matter and bits of grass, rather than a nice solid digested two-part dropping. Not much there, either, for overnight, compared with the other girls. All the other girls' droppings are normal and grit and shell is always available in the run.
Her crop does feel rather full and large, but theres no smell from it and she doesnt seem to mind me feeling it. I'm wondering if it's impacted, what do you think? If so, I know theoretically what to do, but have never encountered this before, so don't want to start with the oil and turning her upside down if it's not that. My chicken vet is away until Monday, so I'm hoping for some advice from you people, please!
 
When did you wormed them last time as undigested food is a sing of digestive system under attack.I would check her crop tommorow morning,if it still full then you will know that is impacted.
 
Thanks Tyg. No I dont think it can be worms, they had their last week of Flubenvet in August, kept strictly in the run with no extras apart from treated pellets, so should have got a full dose. The run is always kept very clean and also their grass, so no heavy egg contamination there I think. Also, the worming time before that, in March, I sent samples to Emma Nelder for her project and the results were very low indeed for all of them, so I don't think they had any big backlog to deal with.
This afternoon it felt really hard and lumpy to me, not doughy as it says to look out for on the Poultrykeeper website, so we got some olive oil down her and I spent 10 minutes or so massaging it, then tipped her up and a little bit of smelly black stuff came out but not enough to make much difference. She put up with all this quite quietly, which was a bit worrying as although she's tame enough to catch easily, she often gets a bit panicky when held and manipulated. I put her back in the run and she walked away looking quite confident so shall go down first thing tomorrow as you suggest and feel it again. For a biggish bird, how much oil should I try to get into her? I was using a plastic pipette and got about 5ml in, I think, warmed up a bit, but was terrified I would get it down her windpipe instead of her gullet. She did wheeze a bit so I stopped. I just wish i had someone to show me how to do it properly!
 
if she has hard crop tommorow morning and masadging will not work(I would imagine 1 spoonfull would be OK)you need to get her to your vet on Monday.Lets hope she will clear this till then.
Is there is any chance that she ate loads of bread recently? I was talking with people on the polish forum about feeding chickens with bread and many expirirnced breeders advise not to as it can contain microfungi which makes all sort of heath problems for chickens,one of this is that bread going bad inside the crop.Is it possoble that she may ate some aubiose-too much perhaps?
 
No chance at all that she has had anything but normal pellets and some of the evening mash made from a mixture of pellets and Garvo Alfamix, with access to short grass, confined within a netting circle on the lawn, also a nibble of a small portion of cabbage trimmings between them in the run. I am the only person who feeds them, and I'm aware of the dangers of eating long grass etc. Her droppings didn't seem to have aubiose in them, just that bits of it stuck to the one I photographed and I couldn't remove all of it without the dropping falling to pieces, it was quite fragile and soft, and i could see strands of semi-digested grass, but not big bits. The feeder and drinker are up on blocks quite high off the ground and generally kept clear of bits of the aubiose. I did wonder if that was causing the blockage, but have never observed any of them eating it. Also there was that funny turquoise colour frosting the poo. I'll have another go with the oil and massage tomorrow, if there still seems to be a problem.
Isn't it strange that, whenever things like this happen, either to animals or people, it's always at weekends? And when I wante to see my chicken vet today, he was away until Monday?
 
Glad to say she seems quite a bit better today. First thing, her crop had become smaller and softer, and I saw her drinking. We got some more warm oil down her gullet (getting better at that!) and massaged her, which she seemed to enjoy. I held her upside down to drain off any fluid, but nothing came out, so I hope she hasn't got sour crop, just the blockage. I made up a soft warm mash of pellets plus some Happy Tummy (ground-up charcoal which absorbs gut toxins) and Waitrose best organic bio-active natural yogurt (!) which she had some of, but everybody else in the run seemed to enjoy as well. An hour later I gave her another massage, and it seemed to be getting smaller, so I'll keep doing that every hour or two and pump in some more oil later in the day.
I found these two videos on Youtube. Neither is for the fainthearted, especially the second one, so don't watch if you are of a nervous disposition. However, I found them helpful and interesting.
The first one is of a man holding a chicken up by her legs and draining out large amounts of sour crop fluid, whilst massaging her crop (to the fascinated delight of watching children on the sound track.) Shows how to hold the bird and drain the crop.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkiVnHWK_p4

The next one is a video of a vet performing surgery on a hen with a badly-blocked impacted crop. This shows what has accumulated in there, poor girl, and also the method used to clear out the mess and close her up (using Superglue.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX_nXdFgDHk

There is another video of this which you can find for yourself if you want or need, where someone is performing the op. on their kitchen table, apparently on vet's advice (!!!!) where the cameraman is so overcome by the stench of the crop contents that he has to go off and be sick in the corner before resuming his task.......
Definitely 'don't try this at home' in my view, though. Let's hope Marigold won't need it. With hindsight, if this happens again I shall know what to look out for at an earlier stage, I now realise her funny droppings and the way she was puffing out her feathers and not interested in her food were early signs and I could have treated her a day or so sooner.
 
Found another video here - isn't the internet useful!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Swiw3Buo4Zw&feature=player_detailpage
Marigold looking better than yesterday, but obviously still impacted - I shall keep on with the treatment to keep softening it, and take her to the vet on Monday for a check up. She does seem to like sitting on my lap and being massaged, also she's very interested in the interior of the kitchen. Good to see her interested in anything, really.
 
Very relieved that her crop has gone down since Saturday, after a lot of oil and massage treatment. Shes now eating better and seems more lively, but is still doing those funny poos, and overnight there's very little coming out in 'her' pile, and it's still that funny colour and texture. So obviously not right yet.
 
Having been on the forum for a while so only just seen that Marigold hasn't been too well! Hope she's better now. Seeing the Aubiose in the 'sample' in the photos made me remember a warning I was given when I went to collect my first hens. I took some boxes to collect them in and, having decided to use Aubiose in the house (as I previously used it successfully with my rabbits) I put some of this in the boxes. When the breeder saw it he warned me that he never used it and didn't advise its use as it could cause crop problems! He gave me a bale of shavings to use instead and because of this warning I've never used Aubiose for the hens. I know you've recently started using it in the run Marigold and was wondering whether it could be this that has caused a problem with her crop?
 
Yes I did wonder about that, Sue, thanks for the warning. Certainly none of the others has shown any crop problems and Marigold recovered OK after her 'oiling' so, now the Aubiose is down there and they're used to it, she'll just have to get on with it! Took Marigold to the vet today because she is still doing funny green poos, even at the end of a week confined strictly to barracks on pellets treated with Flubenvet only, just to eliminate the possibility of worms ( and also to treat my two 22 week old pullets and get them into synch with the others.)
Vet gave her an antibiotic injection and a course of Clavaseptin antibiotic tabs, said it was most probably some sort of liver infection, not infectious, which should respond to the medicine but there were 'further options' (no doubt even more horrendously expensive!) if it didn't clear up. Vet is an avian specialist so should know what he's talking about. I thought she had lost a lot of weight as to me her keel bone felt very prominent, but he said this was normal for chickens and she was fine and must have been quite fat before, if she had lost weight! I told him they never get fattening scraps and he said they could put weight on when fed layers food if not laying ( and Marigold has missed a lot of lay this year, going broody 4 times) and her eggs are small at the best of times. So now getting large pills down hens throat is next on my list of New Skills To Acquire.
 
Good luck with the pills Marigold. How on earth are you going to do that! It was bad enough trying to get liquid antibiotics into mine!
 
Actually, not too bad. I just got her between my legs, opened her beak with one finger of left hand, and stuck half a pill at a time down her throat. Both bits disappeared without trace..... Easier than liquid because if it had fallen out I could just have had another go.
 
Yes seemed quite bright today, couldnt distinguish her poos from anyone elses in the coop this morning. Still has two more days of doses but I think she's on the mend. She does like probiotic yogurt, I don't have to syringe it in, so am taking her out for treats of this to make up for all the force feeding of pills.
 
I think she's probably OK, But she's still not interested in food. Maybe because she's moulting, she just wandered around today when I put in a dish of warm mash and everybody else dived in except her.
 
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