Help please. I have a chicken that is trying to starve herself to death. She won't eat food....

[ArmelChix]

My hen has recently been very sick first with upper respiratory disease than with a compacted crop and now with a sour crop. She will walk around, step over, and step on actual food and even special treats that she used to love in order to eat little bits of dirt, bedding, and tiny bits of dead grass. She has a history of eating bedding as a small chick and upward so I've had to make many accommodations for her but after getting sick she seems to have lost all appetite except for her junk food. It's going on 5 weeks now, the total time that she's been sick. I had her on Nystatin, which did no good at all, and have recently successfully used some at-home products that I found in an excellent article on backyard chickens, and the sour crop is getting much much better.
During this whole time she's not taken one bite of food on her own. And now that she's strong enough to eat on her own, she scratches up any little bits of hay (no matter how much I tried to remove it all) she can find in her cage.....or on the dirt floor of the cage that I built for herself alone.
The only food she eats is what I manage to force feed her either by tubing into the crop or feeding manually. Underneath her feather she has skin and bones with hardly any muscle. Is this a side effect of being in a starved state?
Has anyone else had any experience along this line or any advice as to what to do? At this point it seems like I'm going to have to create a special cage with a wire bottom so that everything falls through and the only thing she can do is eat food out of a feeder. Even then I'm not sure she'll eat.
Also, I could use some advise on tube feeding this almost healthy chicken that needs real food. The usual syringes won't allow small bits of food without getting clogged.
Thanks in advance to anyone who can offer any experience that they've had or any success or other advice. I'm at my wit's end and ready to pull out the rest of my hair that I have left.

 

[Altairsky]

If she's doing this from when she was a chick, then it's a behavioral issue called pica. Unfortunately there isn't much that can be done, even in cats it's almost untreatable.

 

[ArmelChix]

If she's doing this from when she was a chick, then it's a behavioral issue called pica. Unfortunately there isn't much that can be done, even in cats it's almost untreatable.

That's a sad thought. I can't understand why now she won't even eat the treats she loved before this all started.

 

[ChicNmom]

Have you resolved the impaction part of the problem yet? How is the sour crop? It's possible she has an underlying health condition that is slowing her digestive process.

I came back from vacation to find one of one of mine with a giant sour crop. She was also picking at and trying to eat some really odd things. Your girl has a history of that. But now that we are on day 2 of my girls treatment she is eating wet mushy chicken feed and excited to have it.

Mine is also separated into a cage with no dirt floor or any type of bedding she can pick at.

Tube feeding info:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/crop-feeding.75454/

 

[ArmelChix]

That's a sad thought. I can't understand why now she won't even eat the treats she loved before this all started.

She did eat food and treats before being sick, even though she ate bedding if I ever gave her the chance,which I didn't. Now, afterwards, she's changed. Has anyone experienced something like this with a chicken who's been extremely ill?

 

[ArmelChix]

Have you resolved the impaction part of the problem yet? How is the sour crop? It's possible she has an underlying health condition that is slowing her digestive process.

I came back from vacation to find one of one of mine with a giant sour crop. She was also picking at and trying to eat some really odd things. Your girl has a history of that. But now that we are on day 2 of my girls treatment she is eating wet mushy chicken feed and excited to have it.

Mine is also separated into a cage with no dirt floor or any type of bedding she can pick at.

Tube feeding info:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/crop-feeding.75454/

Yes, the impaction is gone. We're at the tail end of dealing with the sour crop. She was very weak, near death, before I found an avian vet. I'm on day 3 using the Miconazol plus lemon juice &spices mixture. These started clearing it up right away but she still has a small squishy crop in the morning. She scratches and pecks and I can tell she's hungry, which is new.

 

[ManueB]

She did eat food and treats before being sick, even though she ate bedding if I ever gave her the chance,which I didn't. Now, afterwards, she's changed. Has anyone experienced something like this with a chicken who's been extremely ill?

When you say she has recovered , is her crop completely empty ?
As long as her crop feels full from being sour or impacted she is not going to eat "normal" food.

Three of my hens had sour crop in their last months of life, and it took them a long time to go back to eating what they did before. My approach with has been the opposite. I would try many different types of food and see what she eats. It can vary from day to day so a food that is rejected once can be eaten two or three days after.
For my hens, sour crop was sadly a secondary issue to reproductive disease. They recovered from the sour crop for two or three months, and passed from the main issue.

 

[ManueB]

Sorry, I just read your answer. I would still say it's not unusual that it should take two weeks at least to go back to completely normal feeding behaviour. Tube feeding will ensure she get some calories if you are worried in the meantime.

 

[ChicNmom]

Yes, the impaction is gone. We're at the tail end of dealing with the sour crop. She was very weak, near death, before I found an avian vet. I'm on day 3 using the Miconazol plus lemon juice &spices mixture. These started clearing it up right away but she still has a small squishy crop in the morning. She scratches and pecks and I can tell she's hungry, which is new.

I have had to get some interested in food after not wanting to eat for whatever reason. I have tube fed but hate doing it unless I really have to.

I wrapped them in a towel, got their beak open and just put the food (usually scrambled egg) in their beak and didn't let them spit it out.

I have also made what I jokingly call bread bombs where I put whatever it is I want them to have in a little piece of bread. Then get it damp so it's slippery and goes down easy.

Sometimes they just need something to get their appetite going.
After going too long without food the body stops signaling that they are hungry. It happens with people as well.

 

[ArmelChix]

Sorry, I just read your answer. I would still say it's not unusual that it should take two weeks at least to go back to completely normal feeding behaviour. Tube feeding will ensure she get some calories if you are worried in the meantime.