Hi All,
We have been keeping hens for around nine months now and recently made the mistake of commenting on how healthy and happy all our hens were looking - they were bought at POL so are about a year old now and I guess in their prime.
The hens are free-ish ranging, they have a 50 metre length of chicken wire which gets moved around a small field. Other than what they scratch up, they get fed layers pellets and finely chopped veg scraps and small amounts of corn to get them in at night. The run has not been moved recently so unlikely to be any long grass accessible although there is some hay which is used as bedding in the nest box but I’ve not been aware of any of them eating it.
They have had access to grit but seem to prefer kicking it around to eating it.
Egg production dropped off slightly over winter but even during the coldest weather (we were snowed in for 9 days), we averaged significantly better than an egg every other day.
Yesterday, I spotted that one of the bluebells was looking unhappy - head tucked in and feathers puffed out and when I picked her up, I found that her crop was very distended (fist sized) and missing quite a few feathers. I may have imagined it but one of the other hens may have had a peck at the crop as I grabbed the bluebell but it might just have been the confusion.
Having consulted by book on chicken keeping and watched various Utube vids, I squirted a couple of 6ml syringes of cider vinegar down her through and spent 15 minutes massaging the crop which loosened up quite a bit and felt more like a bag of wet sand with lumps in it than anything fibrous.
After upending her and massaging her some more we were rewarded with some grey/green gunk but probably not much more than we had put down her throat.
We isolated her and left her overnight with water but no food and this morning, the crop was still very distended. Tried the same routine, this time with olive oil with similar results - none of the Utube vids seem to show much more fluid coming out and the crop seems to be more grapefruit than apple sized so if the contents are going to move up rather than down, there is a lot to shift.
Mrs K spoke to the vet who recommended carrying on with what we are doing and offering her some moistened pellets if she would take them.
The hen is clearly not happy but has has a bit of a go at the pellets and has passed some small amounts of rather oily looking poop. She has fairly stoically endured the squirting, massaging and upending and although not right is still on her feet and functioning. She is still isolated so we can see what goes in and comes out.
I’m happy to carry on with this routine for as long as need be but would be grateful for some advice on how long it is likely to take to show some results and how long the bird can stay in this state before deteriorating significantly.
I’m not up for any DIY surgery but would consider taking her to the local vet whose rates (judging by what we paid to get our cat fixed up after an infected bite) although obviously likely to me more than the cost of a replacement bird, are very reasonable, although she was certainly not angling for the job.
Sorry for the long post but wanted to cover all the background - any advice would be very welcome.
Many thanks,
K