Is my pekin bantam male or female?

[Dolly]

It seems I can almost tick off every ailment in the book now with Roxy, she's had the lot in her time!

 

I've never experienced impacted crop but from what I've read on the forum, I think that's what she has. I noticed about an hour after letting them out this morning, that Roxy's crop seemed to still be full, so I picked her up and it was quite hard.

 

Having lost my lovely Lola to peritonitis recently, I'm seriously paranoid now so it's off to the vet's this morning for us.

 

Is the prognosis good with impacted crop (if in fact that's what it is)? As usual, the timing is awful and we're off tomorrow on a long weekend with the family. Roxy is my baby and I'm so worried about her and wondering if I should give the trip a miss to take care of her.

 

Any thoughts or experiences gratefully received!

 

Thanks.

[miller30]

Hi i dont normally bother with the vets i can normally sort them out but last week after 3 days of trying to sort my 8 week old grower out who had impacted crop i admitted defeat and took her to the vet who kept her in and phoned me the next day to ask my permission to put her to sleep as she couldnt move it i knew in my heart i should have just culled her and not bothered with the vet but after hatching a 11 boys and only 2 girls it was worth a try i dont have much luck with impacted crops but you may be lucky goodluck leanne

[Ain't Nobody Here]

Sorry to hear that . I have no personal experience of it but have you read the info here?

[The Dogmother]

As said before, it's usually easily treated at home, but there's the odd case where the blockage is further down the digestive system and untreatable.

[Dolly]

Thanks for your replies all. Roxy is currently at the vets so he can crop tube water into her to help move it on, along with administering antibiotics. He suggested her crop could be full as a result of her feeling a bit under the weather for another reason and her digestive system responding by being sluggish, not necessarily just impacted crop.

I'm picking her up later today assuming she's improved following the treatment.

 

I feel a bit better knowing she's getting help, especially as it's been caught early and he thought the prognosis was good, also she was still her feisty self when I left her! He even said if she responded well today, I could still go away (not that I feel like it), as long my chicken sitters could crop tube / deal with the blockage problem themselves if it came back (they are very experienced poultry farmers / hen boarders who are qualified and happy to do this).

 

Wish me luck!

[Tweety]

Glad to hear that Roxy is ok. I had to take one of my ex batts to the vet this week with suspected impacted crop. In fact, although her crop was quite hard, she was eating and drinking as usual but the food was passing through her system undigested.

The vet thought that it was a problem further along in the digestive system, and he gave her a dose of Beryl's Friendly Bacteria - which he described as the chicken equivalent of yakult - and some electrolytes via tube into her crop.

She seems much better, her crop is not so hard, and she is eating, drinking and pooing apparently quite normally now.

Maybe Roxy has had a similar problem? I do hope she recovers and that you can go away as planned!

[Dolly]

Hi Tweety, glad to hear your girl is on the mend.

Roxy's crop was practically normal this morning ie. felt empty and flat, if a bit squishy (I guess this is how it should be?).

She had a light wet mash breakfast which filled her crop again and the vet said as long as it empties by this evening, she should be fine. He said she shouldn't have any food until it's empty so you can imagine the dirty looks I'm getting, she does love her food!!

On that note, does anyone know how long the crop usually takes to empty?

[The Dogmother]

It does empty a tad during the day but as it normally refills as they feed this isn't as noticeable. It ought to empty over night.

 

The crop isn't elastic and doesn't have anything to 'hold it in' so it's easily stretched if the hen tends to gorge on food.

[mothercarey]

Glad she's on the mend! Often their crops just slow down, rather than impact, if they're feeling a bit poorly already. I'm interested to hear about Beryl's Friendly Bacteria too - might get some in just in case!

 

As an aside, my Australorp, Daisy (who is my precious baby and even shares my birthday - she'll be two on Saturday!) had a stubborn impacted crop around this time last year and our vet operated using a local anaesthetic (Daisy is VERY placid) to remove the impaction and she's still going strong. She had Nystatin (anti fungal) and Baytril for a week and we had to be careful what we gave her to eat for a few days, but she recovered really well. It cost about £100 in consultations, meds and surgery time, but she was well worth it! (I actually had Daisy's crop surgery story published in Practical Poultry last summer, if any of you have copies going back that far!)

 

Sadly though, Daisy's Mum, Henny Penny, died from the same surgery under a general anaesthetic a few months previously, so I've learnt the lesson that you should always stress you want your vet to use local anaesthesia if at all possible.

 

My personal lesson after these two incidents was to be careful about diet in general and that prevention is always better than cure. Both my girls were lap chickens who had very naughty diets and to be honest I think I killed Henny Penny with kindness. I've cut out a lot of the more 'stodgy' treats I used to allow my girls (cheese and bread) and been very careful with raw greens (I tend to avoid very fibrous stuff like cabbage). My vet also told me that excess salt will stop the crop muscles from working, so I'm really careful about the s"Ooops, word censored!"s I feed. I also use a very good crop canker and impaction prevention supplement in the water once a fortnight (called 'Cankex', from Taylor's Choice) which seems to keep everything moving.

 

Sorry for the essay, but I really suffered when Henny Penny died and I wouldn't want it to be in vain...

[Egluntyne]

I imagine that Cankex is not licensed for use on poultry in the UK as it is a pigeon med.