I HAVE asked vet, searched internet, almost paid online for info but
decided not to risk bad guys getting my info - so maybe you can help:
Its a Golden Comet hen, 3 years old, this spring and summer had/has
3 bouts of strange illness. Recovered and resumed laying between bouts.
Symptoms: Giant bag of fluid in craw, listless, no eggs.
Has been to vet, been treated with Ampicillin (vet) and Duramycin-10
(from feed store). Hen did recover after the Ampicillin but that may have
been coincidence.
I have other chickens who never get this problem. They are all free range.
Thanks for your help!
Fitsy
Disease question
Hi Fitsy. Have you tried googling "chicken disease crop"? There are quite a few sites that discuss different crop conditions in chickens. After looking at a few I found this one which sounds something like your chicken's:
http://www.thepoultrysite.com/diseaseinfo/113/pendulous-crop
Hi, Catscan, thanks so much. You led me to some more places
to search, and suggested medicines. My hen's pouch seems to
contain just liquid, no solids.
Fitsy
I think that "just liquid" can be a sign of crop stasis or sour crop too.
There seem to be a lot of possible causes, including Marek's Disease and vitamin B difficiencies. The latter can appear in a single bird that has a higher genetic requirement for the vitamins...in other words it doesn't absorb or process the vitamin as well as its flock mates.
This site kind of runs through some possible causes... thrush (candida) infections seem common too, but I would think you would see white cheesey material with that.
http://dlhunicorn.conforums.com/index.cgi?board=emergencies&action=print&num=1161893898
Thanks for even more links!! (I wonder why I couldn't find them)
I'm thinking a piece of oyster shell might be in her craw, can't go
through, moves around and clogs things off and on. I use oyster
shell for poultry but some pieces look big to me.
So many possibilities - hard to tell which way to go
Interesting about sucking stuff out. I wonder if an obstruction
could be sucked out.
Fitsy
I think oyster shell will ultimately dissolve and is probably not the problem.
(Catscan is the preeminent link finder.)
I live to link:0)
Hi, Porkpal, thanks for input.
Well, my poor, poor, sweet hen. I've already taken her to vet. He doesn't
know what to do - except autopsy. One of Catscan's links suggested
a throat swab be taken to vet. I'll talk to him.
Reminds me of seeing a hen eat a snake. She whapped it on the ground
for a spell, and then she swallowed and swallowed and swallowed, and
got it all in, and she then had a giant craw. I wondered how that was
going to work - some snake would ooz through the gizzard little by
little, and at one point the hen would have snake in her craw, in her
gizzard, and in the parts that follow?? I guess the hen was lucky in that
the snake cooperated and entered gizzard nose first. Instead of sideways.
Fitsy
Oh my!