Chicken appetite low after crop surgery

[babybop11]

Did crop surgery on my 5mo old buff. She seemed pretty good immediately after, ate some egg yesterday. Today, (two days later) she will really only eat apple sauce. Is it abnormal for her to not be too interested in eating? I imagine she could be sore. I have offered watered down food, egg, yogurt, and apple sauce. She has access to grit. Given her droppers-full of water with probiotics and nutri drench. Also gave her 400 IU Vitamin E, a quarter of a B complex vitamin, half a calcium/d3 pill, and the last of an anti-inflammatory med I had for her from a previous issue. We suspected mites as well and gave a permethrin 10 bath last night. Any other suggestions? @Wyorp Rock @azygous @Eggcessive @nuthatched

 

[Kiki]

Don't bath her again.
What was the crop issue to begin with?

 

[azygous]

For a chicken the crop is like our stomach. When it's empty it, triggers the desire to eat. When full, it feels satisfied. Those of us who have endured stomach surgery experienced a mixture of feeling starved following surgery, but then needing time to get back full function. A little soft food will feel like all the crop can handle at first. It takes about a week to get back to normal.

Over the years treating my chicken crop patients, they seem to instinctively know what they can safely eat and what not to. I offer them safe foods like soft boiled egg and applesauce and yogurt, maybe very watery cereal, and they choose what to eat and how much. At the one week mark, you can start to offer their regular feed again, but hold off a bit longer with the cracked grains.

If their appetite is still poor at the one-week mark and if they are lethargic, the incision may be infected. In all the crop surgery cases I've supervised on this site, only one became infected, and an oral antibiotic took care of it.