Chicken ate a golf ball

[T-Amy]

My 6 month old white leghorn somehow managed to swallow a golf ball from the nesting box- and it's in her crop- it looks like it's torn the skin so the golf ball has almost worked its way out. She won't let me catch her to look at it or try to get it out so I'll have to wait til she roosts tonight to see if I can work on it.
I don't want to have to isolate her to give her antibiotics- can anyone suggest whether topical triple antibiotic ointment should work? Can I just cut the crop slightly if it won't work its way out itself? does it heal itself? (I suspect I'll have to isolate her for a day or two without food going in & out of the crop so it can heal without the constant exposure to food & grit in there preventing it from healing but I'm not sure). We are going out of town soon & I want to get this resolved while I can keep an eye on her-
I'm guessing it's painful but not sure if chickens can have pain medicine?
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Kim95037]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/714238/removed-three-screws-from-crop-yikes-update-good-news

 

[redsoxs]

Wow! I sure don't know. And I hope you don't think I was making light of it when you posted over on the other forum. I just didn't want you to operate on her crop just to find out it was tightly packed grain or feed. But since you see it and say it is a golf ball, beats the heck out of me. Sounds like there are some folks on this thread who have had birds that swallowed odd stuff so I hope they can give you some good advice. Best of luck!

 

[Kim95037]

If you are absolutely sure its a golf ball you might want to consider trying to remove it. Once it moves into the intestines you will have a much bigger problem. I just had to make a tiny 1/4 slit in my chickens crop. A ball would require a much bigger incision, so that might require some stitches, Im not sure about doing that, I have NO experiance on that. I do know that someone posted a crop surgery on this website where they made a pretty good size incision and I believe they stitched it shut. Yikes. Im not sure what to tell you, thats a tough situation you have there.

 

[ChickensRDinos]

I have done home crop surgery before. PM me if you want all the details.

 

[Judy]

I agree that you will have to remove it if she is to live. I would catch her any way I could, as soon as I could. You may have to isolate her so the others don't bother the wound. Besides the offers of help you've received, there is a lot of information in the stickies (blue box) at the top of this forum. Several people here have done crop surgery for impacted crops.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

http://msucares.com/poultry/diseases/solutions.html
This link has aspirin dosage for pain. Remember that aspirin is a bloodthinner, so you might want to give it immediately after the surgery- I don't know what kind of bleeding to expect from crop surgery as I have never done it.

 

[T-Amy]

Thanks everyone- I had to wait til she roosted but by then the ball was on the ground outside the coop. i brought her in & washed her up but I didn't see any cuts or anything awry with her crop when I had her in the sink- she was so patient & didn't seem in distress. I am so confused as to what happened. I posted a picture of this on Facebook on the BackYard Chickens page but of course only my friends had comments & no real chicken owners could offer any advice. I wasn't able to upload any pictures on here- so, I'll keep an eye on her & see.
thanks so much! You all are the best!