Vet op on impacted crop - how safe is it?

[chickenfan]

Has anyone tried the vet operation on impacted crop? It seems to be done under local anaesthetic. As my bird has lost so much weight but still has some strength left, I thought I might go for this. Her tennis-ball sized crop is now soft after oil and yogurt, but has not got any smaller.

 

[KittyKat]

Do you mean that you intend for a vet to do the operation or to try it yourself?

A vet who has operated on birds before is would probably make a decent job of it, but it would take a week or two for the bird to recover and keeping a recovering chicken segregated is not fun as they get easily bored.

If you are talking about doing the operation yourself, then it would be very risky and I think there is a high likelyhood of your bird dying.

 

[Marigold]

Sorry to say this, but as your bird has been ill for a while and has lost so much weight, there's not a lot of hope for her. Chickens are very good at hiding illness and it's common for even a careful keeper to fail to see illness until they're pretty bad. Unless you have a very skilled and experienced avian vet, and unless she is a very special chicken indeed to you, it might be kinder to cull her, or at least just carry on trying to make her comfortable. Even if the vet managed to operate, this will cause her a lot of stress and suffering, and might not cure the root cause of the crop obstruction. If you don't mind spending money at the vet, and couldn't manage to cull her yourself, you could let the vet. provide her with a painless end. A difficult decision, I know - chickens are just not very long-lived birds, I'm afraid, and when things go wrong one has to consider what is the kindest course to take.

(Edit I've just read your other post and see t did try the vet option but she died. I'm not surprised, but it's very sad, sorry Chickenfan.
It's always good to know that your flock is fully up-to-date with their worming, so that at least if one becomes ill you know that worms are not the cause and are not making things worse. I really don't think Mareks is a probable cause, based on what you have described.

 

[chickenfan]

Thanks Marigold. I'm very sorry I made her suffer. She was only 5 months old and hadn't yet started laying. Funnily enough her mother didn't like her when she was a chick. It has made me distrustful of my vet and the price is extortionate for what they said would be a minor procedure.

 

[chickenfan]

Lesson here is op is likely to kill the bird if done under gen anaesthetic, as a bird with impacted crop is dehydrated, but is a fairly minor procedure if done by an experienced poultry vet under local anaesthetic, so long as your bird is not too fiesty. Normally birds can go back in with the flock after 24 hours, but their digestion may take a while to recover, so they need probiotics and vitamins afterwards.