Bantam Cochin with crop issue

[Miss Lydia]

I have been treating my little Cochin hen for a crop problem first her crop was a little smaller than a ping ball it was soft not hard and she had no smell coming for her beak. I started out using the cream Clotrimazone syringe 3X a day [Instructions from {Two Crows} finally her crop emptied but I am now treating her with acidified Copper. Since we were thinking it was yeast and the Copper would finish it off. Now her crop is empty for 2 days but she is barely eating. She is inside since it is very cold out and I brought her sister in yesterday to keep her company, this is when I realized how light she is compared to her sister. It is probably because she hasn't been eating much I have been syringing baby bird food today just to put something in her but she eats mealworms. Two Crows thinks there may be something else going on with her since she just isn't bouching back . I have antibiotics if this is my next course of action.

 

[azygous]

I should have checked on that. Magnesium sulfate does turn poop temporarily black. I'll try to remember that. I'm happy she's showing some improvement.

 

[azygous]

She's most likelygot something else going on. She should be feeling better and be interested in food by now.

This is when I mix up a potent cocktail of liquid food laced with extra protein (raw egg) Poultry Nutri-drench and a heaping spoon full of sugar and tube it into the patient. It's crunch time. If the shot of glucose, protein, and Nutri-drench, which goes directly into the blood stream, doesn't get her off her mark, nothing will.

 

[azygous]

We've both been at this long enough to know the signs of a hen giving up the fight. This fall I lost one. I went through every single thing that you have with this girl. She's a rerun for me of my fall episode.

I finally withdrew all support care and left her on her own. She died on her own within just two or three days. Everything about her seemed normal other than she quit eating. I didn't even do a quickie necropsy. I knew it would have shown reproductive infection. Those are such a heart breaker.

 

[azygous]

Summer, my seven year-old Cuckoo Marans was with her flock all through her illness. None of them molested her, but I would have removed her and euthanized her earlier if they had. She died in the night in the coop. She was on a low perch alone when she expired.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I think I’ll keep her in my bantams do get picked on sometimes by my big hens. I don’t want her to be stressed when she can go peacefully inside with me. I actually got her to eat a tiny bit of egg yolk by putting it on the floor in front of her. Not near enough but it was worth a try.

 

[azygous]

These final days are hard. But she will decide when it's over. You'll get signals. Eyes closed and refuses to open is one. Stopping all eating is another. Not caring about her surroundings is another. Like people who are dying, chickens also disengage gradually. There is no rebound whatsoever. Just a steady decline that's unmistakable for what it is.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I know it's up to her now it's just so hard to see them like this. I've let a few go on their own and also had to help a few it's never easy. She has her pen in here with us and her mirror which she loves.
Again I appreciate your support it really helps.

 

[azygous]

No, it never does get easier. It does help, though, to have someone who understands go through it with you.

So many chickens over the years have left me like this. Some I could relive as if it had happened just yesterday. The most excruciating, yet most tender was when I euthanized my nearly fourteen-year old Light Brahma hen Lady Di. She had been one of my very first baby chicks.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Those are the hardest since they have been with us so long.

Thank you for sharing not many folks understand how we can get so attached to something like a chicken or poultry in general they just have never known one.