Crop mystery

[mintyivyy1]

Good morning all,

Our 2.5 year old cream legbar is having a mysterious issue. Her crop isn't emptying, but she is still eating throughout the day, so it must be going somewhere, right? She has seen a vet and been on antibiotics (first, SMZ-TMP for 10 days) and now Nystatin. The SMZ-TMP was for a separate issue, sometimes she has some laying problems, but maybe that caused the crop issue? She's also molting and is on meloxicam as well right now. Crop simply feels full of food, more sandbaggy--no hard impacted feel, no waterballoon mushy sour feel.

First thing in the morning her crop is full, her poops are essentially liquid. She's part of a flock of 7, everyone else is healthy, they have grit and oyster shell, and plenty space but they do not free range, it's covered and protected. Also, she is starting a molt.

What's getting me is that she's still eating. Generally she's bright and alert. The vet is pretty good (exotics) but never specified to remove food or water, anything like that. I guess if the crop isn't working, massaging and oil and all of that might not do much? She also had an x-ray that looked normal.

I'm so desperate to be hopeful here, this bird has been through a lot of illness. What I don't want it to be is some repro issue that isn't showing up on xray that's blocking her crop. It's much harder to find a place that does ultrasounds.

Anything ringing any bells, any advice from the experts?

 

[Debbie292d]

First, after two rounds of antibiotics, part of her crop issue could be from that. I'd get her on probiotics for about two weeks, and thereafter once a week. There are many powders you can mix in their water or just plain yogurt works too.

Here are two excellent articles about crops by two experts here in BYC. I never have crop issues but read these and they are so helpful!

https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...w-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/

https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...ntion-and-treatments-of-crop-disorders.67194/

 

[alinas2010]

Good morning all,

Our 2.5 year old cream legbar is having a mysterious issue. Her crop isn't emptying, but she is still eating throughout the day, so it must be going somewhere, right? She has seen a vet and been on antibiotics (first, SMZ-TMP for 10 days) and now Nystatin. The SMZ-TMP was for a separate issue, sometimes she has some laying problems, but maybe that caused the crop issue? She's also molting and is on meloxicam as well right now. Crop simply feels full of food, more sandbaggy--no hard impacted feel, no waterballoon mushy sour feel.

First thing in the morning her crop is full, her poops are essentially liquid. She's part of a flock of 7, everyone else is healthy, they have grit and oyster shell, and plenty space but they do not free range, it's covered and protected. Also, she is starting a molt.

What's getting me is that she's still eating. Generally she's bright and alert. The vet is pretty good (exotics) but never specified to remove food or water, anything like that. I guess if the crop isn't working, massaging and oil and all of that might not do much? She also had an x-ray that looked normal.

I'm so desperate to be hopeful here, this bird has been through a lot of illness. What I don't want it to be is some repro issue that isn't showing up on xray that's blocking her crop. It's much harder to find a place that does ultrasounds.

Anything ringing any bells, any advice from the experts?

I’m so sorry to hear your hen is having crop issues. May I ask what she was on an antibiotic for?

I’ve been through something similar after my dear Jarfar was on an antibiotic for a reproductive infection. Interestingly, she is a black sex link about the same age. I didn’t take her to a vet but she got a course of amoxicillin (aquamox) at home with the dosage help of some educators here on the site. She got what I assume was a yeast infection in her crop afterwards. She only pooped liquid and ate very little. It was pretty squishy and at first I assumed doughy crop, but there was no smell. Eventually she stopped eating and got very skinny. I massaged with coconut oil thinking it would help, but to no avail. At first I didn’t think it could be a yeast infection because she had been eating Greek yogurt and a probiotic during her treatment. Initially her crop kept growing in size, and I thought it was just from her eating more and more. Looking back, I think it was yeast growing. As a last ditch effort, once she stopped eating, I bought women’s yeast infection medication from the grocery store and filled blueberries with it, (bc she would still gobble those down). She consumed those 2x (1mL per feeding, I think, I’d have to look back) a day and day by day her crop shrank and she got better.

I don’t know much about nystatin, but I think it’s to fight fungal infections. But have you considered trying another type of anti fungal? It’s weird it wouldn’t work, but I’m not very experienced with that medication. Maybe the otc one might be worth a shot, it worked wonders for me.

The articles @Debbie292d linked are excellent and helped me come to the choice to try an otc women’s antifungal medication.

 

[mintyivyy1]

I’m so sorry to hear your hen is having crop issues. May I ask what she was on an antibiotic for?

I’ve been through something similar after my dear Jarfar was on an antibiotic for a reproductive infection. Interestingly, she is a black sex link about the same age. I didn’t take her to a vet but she got a course of amoxicillin (aquamox) at home with the dosage help of some educators here on the site. She got what I assume was a yeast infection in her crop afterwards. She only pooped liquid and ate very little. It was pretty squishy and at first I assumed doughy crop, but there was no smell. Eventually she stopped eating and got very skinny. I massaged with coconut oil thinking it would help, but to no avail. At first I didn’t think it could be a yeast infection because she had been eating Greek yogurt and a probiotic during her treatment. Initially her crop kept growing in size, and I thought it was just from her eating more and more. Looking back, I think it was yeast growing. As a last ditch effort, once she stopped eating, I bought women’s yeast infection medication from the grocery store and filled blueberries with it, (bc she would still gobble those down). She consumed those 2x (1mL per feeding, I think, I’d have to look back) a day and day by day her crop shrank and she got better.

I don’t know much about nystatin, but I think it’s to fight fungal infections. But have you considered trying another type of anti fungal? It’s weird it wouldn’t work, but I’m not very experienced with that medication. Maybe the otc one might be worth a shot, it worked wonders for me.

The articles @Debbie292d linked are excellent and helped me come to the choice to try an otc women’s antifungal medication.

I'm so glad your bird is feeling better! Exact same scenario: our hen was on SMZ-TMP for a repro infection that she gets every six months or so.

Nystatin is prescription strength for yeast infections so it really SHOULD work, but I'll keep your method in mind as a last ditch effort. She's also now on clavamox in case there is any lingering infection, really doing whatever we possibly can.

I've read all of the crop articles on this site, and frankly, none of the crop issues any of my hens have ever had match up with them well. I've never seen textbook sour or impacted crop, only more complex cases of doughy crop that are very very difficult to resolve. Frustrating. No amount of massage or oil has ever made a difference.

 

[mintyivyy1]

First, after two rounds of antibiotics, part of her crop issue could be from that. I'd get her on probiotics for about two weeks, and thereafter once a week. There are many powders you can mix in their water or just plain yogurt works too.

Here are two excellent articles about crops by two experts here in BYC. I never have crop issues but read these and they are so helpful!

https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...w-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/

https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...ntion-and-treatments-of-crop-disorders.67194/

Thanks! I haven't found any of these methods to work for the very complex doughy crop issues I usually come across, unfortunately. No textbook impacted or sour crop, just this really tenacious doughy crop that I've seen a few times. I'll certainly try some probiotics, she gets ACV in her water, and she's on a lot of medication right now to try and help her!

 

[alinas2010]

I'm so glad your bird is feeling better! Exact same scenario: our hen was on SMZ-TMP for a repro infection that she gets every six months or so.

Nystatin is prescription strength for yeast infections so it really SHOULD work, but I'll keep your method in mind as a last ditch effort. She's also now on clavamox in case there is any lingering infection, really doing whatever we possibly can.

I've read all of the crop articles on this site, and frankly, none of the crop issues any of my hens have ever had match up with them well. I've never seen textbook sour or impacted crop, only more complex cases of doughy crop that are very very difficult to resolve. Frustrating. No amount of massage or oil has ever made a difference.

Is your hen feeling any better? I’m sorry she is going through all of that. I know how frustrating it can be, I was at my wits end when we went through all of the issues we had. While Jafar recovered for now, I do wonder if she will end up getting her infection again in a few months, too.

So I will say, while all of the articles we read were helpful in understanding what the symptoms could mean, none of them were text book what was going on. I absolutely could not match up what was happening with her crop with any of the “diagnoses” from those articles. I tried massaging and coconut oil at first because I thought okay, not emptying, gotta be clogged. Didn’t work. Then I thought okay, squishy/doughy, maybe getting sour drop? But it wasn’t smelly. So that didn’t check out. I really didn’t know how to treat her. What I did know was that she was getting really skinny and didn’t feel well and was going to pass away if I didn’t try something and I wasn’t willing to try to puke her to get her crop to empty. It truly was somewhat of a last ditch effort to try to save her. Idk if it’ll help at all, but here is a link to the article I posted about Jafar, maybe it’ll help, maybe it won’t, but I know what it’s like to have a sick hen

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/is-e-coli-opportunistic-in-chickens.1627417/

I really hope that your hen is getting better. It is really fortunate that you have a vet willing to treat her!

 

[micstrachan]

When I have had a stubborn crop, I have persisted with tubing fluids, and massage, and sometimes feeding frozen chunks of coconut oil. However, I’ve also had some success using candidase which has digestive enzymes (protease and cellulase) meant for humans. Seems like it helps break down what is causing the impaction. Of course it’s always a risk to try something like this on a chicken, but in my flock, it seems like it works, and it has helped two birds. Try at your own (and your bird’s) risk.