chrismahon
Well-known member
We had two Blue Laced Wyandottes showing the same symptoms. Solid crop, not eating or drinking, no poos other than a tiny trickle which smelt terrible and some loss of weight. They were both moulting. Tried treating for crop impaction without success. They were both being bullied and hiding in the coop so they were let out to free range in the day and put back in the coop at night. We put them on Baytril, simply on the basis that nothing else is working and we have some. They were given water by syringe as well but couldn't take much. They were happy scratching around but were very slow moving. I suspected feather eating, not feather pecking but large fallen moulted feathers, which had blocked the crop.
Yesterday one took a sudden downturn and was brought in. She collapsed and died later.
I had no option but to postmortem her in an attempt to save her sister. Not a pleasant task. I discovered a blockage in her intestine, a solid crop that had turned the skin around it green and what looked like a tumour on the gizzard. When fully opened up the complexity of the problem became apparent. The intestine was blocked half way down with long grass and a few small stones and the rest was full of rotten fluid. The gizzard was packed full of grass to the extent that it was massively distorted and the muscle walls were dark and shrunken. There was no grit in it whatsoever. The crop was full of rotten pieces of fruit treats and more grass. No feathers or worms evident. So what went wrong?
We have just left Dordogneshire and moved to Gascony. The chickens are off their dark bare earth and frequently muddy runs and on to bright, dry, grass runs. The whole move took a very hectic 7 weeks, with the chickens going on trips 7 and 8, so in two batches. To build a temporary enclosure for them here I needed the posts and mesh from the internal enclosure dividers in the Dordogne. This meant no free ranging and confinement to the coop runs for two weeks because every coop has a cockerel in it. All our hens were moulting as well, so lots of feathers in the runs. What we hadn't noticed was two moulting Wyandotte hens being bullied off the feeder in that two week period. Their run was too small for long term confinement (it was never meant for that) and that must have triggered the bullying. They were obviously hungry and wasting away as a result. We did have two feeders in that run but spares were needed at the other end in two sheds which would be their temporary accommodation. Of course when they got here, even though their new run was bigger and better, they were still being bullied. I wasn't here to watch them as I was on the way back for the remaining chickens and coops. I conclude that because they couldn't eat any feed they gorged themselves on the fresh grass, which was too long anyway and should have been cut before they went in. With no grit in the gizzard to grind it up they had no chance of shifting it through. Time was my overriding concern, as we had to get everything out by end of September and as it was I finally left with the enclosure (trip 9) in the afternoon of the 29th.
I hoped we could save the second one as she seemed stronger than the first and had begun to poo solids. She was moving about a lot yesterday, but alas no. This morning she had collapsed on the floor of the coop, presumably as the other, suffering the effect of toxins from the food rotting in her digestive system. My reference literature says that an impacted gizzard is a fatal problem and in these cases obviously was so.
So I suppose the lessons I have learned are:-
Confining previously free ranging birds in too small a run for any significant period could lead to stress and bullying so the situation must be monitored constantly with crops checked at night and poos checked in the morning. This run was 7 square metres with a 2 metre perch for 7 birds. Too small for Wyandottes, even mature ones. I knew this and overlooked it.
Grass in runs must be short -there is always a risk of crop impaction on long grass anyway. In the UK they were on mown lawns.
When let out on grass for the first time their crops need to be full of feed so they can't over-eat grass. We used to let ours out in the afternoons to ensure that they had eaten feed, because we had some lose weight due to eating just 'rubbish'.
If grit is in with the feed, when they are not eating they are not getting any grit either. Safest in a separate container perhaps.
Bullying is going to be the biggest problem when the bully isn't laying. At least when she goes into the nest box the hens can nip out for a feed. So problem times will be during the moult and when the nights get longer. So that's the time to most watch for it.
Perhaps if I had addressed just any one of the above our two lovely hens would still be alive. It was a chain of events that caused the problem and all I had to do was break that chain.
Yesterday one took a sudden downturn and was brought in. She collapsed and died later.
I had no option but to postmortem her in an attempt to save her sister. Not a pleasant task. I discovered a blockage in her intestine, a solid crop that had turned the skin around it green and what looked like a tumour on the gizzard. When fully opened up the complexity of the problem became apparent. The intestine was blocked half way down with long grass and a few small stones and the rest was full of rotten fluid. The gizzard was packed full of grass to the extent that it was massively distorted and the muscle walls were dark and shrunken. There was no grit in it whatsoever. The crop was full of rotten pieces of fruit treats and more grass. No feathers or worms evident. So what went wrong?
We have just left Dordogneshire and moved to Gascony. The chickens are off their dark bare earth and frequently muddy runs and on to bright, dry, grass runs. The whole move took a very hectic 7 weeks, with the chickens going on trips 7 and 8, so in two batches. To build a temporary enclosure for them here I needed the posts and mesh from the internal enclosure dividers in the Dordogne. This meant no free ranging and confinement to the coop runs for two weeks because every coop has a cockerel in it. All our hens were moulting as well, so lots of feathers in the runs. What we hadn't noticed was two moulting Wyandotte hens being bullied off the feeder in that two week period. Their run was too small for long term confinement (it was never meant for that) and that must have triggered the bullying. They were obviously hungry and wasting away as a result. We did have two feeders in that run but spares were needed at the other end in two sheds which would be their temporary accommodation. Of course when they got here, even though their new run was bigger and better, they were still being bullied. I wasn't here to watch them as I was on the way back for the remaining chickens and coops. I conclude that because they couldn't eat any feed they gorged themselves on the fresh grass, which was too long anyway and should have been cut before they went in. With no grit in the gizzard to grind it up they had no chance of shifting it through. Time was my overriding concern, as we had to get everything out by end of September and as it was I finally left with the enclosure (trip 9) in the afternoon of the 29th.
I hoped we could save the second one as she seemed stronger than the first and had begun to poo solids. She was moving about a lot yesterday, but alas no. This morning she had collapsed on the floor of the coop, presumably as the other, suffering the effect of toxins from the food rotting in her digestive system. My reference literature says that an impacted gizzard is a fatal problem and in these cases obviously was so.
So I suppose the lessons I have learned are:-
Confining previously free ranging birds in too small a run for any significant period could lead to stress and bullying so the situation must be monitored constantly with crops checked at night and poos checked in the morning. This run was 7 square metres with a 2 metre perch for 7 birds. Too small for Wyandottes, even mature ones. I knew this and overlooked it.
Grass in runs must be short -there is always a risk of crop impaction on long grass anyway. In the UK they were on mown lawns.
When let out on grass for the first time their crops need to be full of feed so they can't over-eat grass. We used to let ours out in the afternoons to ensure that they had eaten feed, because we had some lose weight due to eating just 'rubbish'.
If grit is in with the feed, when they are not eating they are not getting any grit either. Safest in a separate container perhaps.
Bullying is going to be the biggest problem when the bully isn't laying. At least when she goes into the nest box the hens can nip out for a feed. So problem times will be during the moult and when the nights get longer. So that's the time to most watch for it.
Perhaps if I had addressed just any one of the above our two lovely hens would still be alive. It was a chain of events that caused the problem and all I had to do was break that chain.