Pages collated by 
Jill Bowis of

started November 1999

IMPACTED CROP
If a bird has an impacted crop the crop will be either really squishy or really hard.  If the food has started to rot you will smell it.  The bird will lose weight (because no food is being digested) even though
you notice she always seems to be "full".  Also, the bird will make  jerky neck movements, I guess trying to force the stuff to go somewhere.
I have a Dark Cornish hen with what I believe is an impacted crop...its much larger than it should be, so large that she's rubbing feathers off, its still full in the morning, its fairly firm. I've tried massaging it, but I may have waited too long for that to do any good. Anyone know how I should treat this thing...the hen's otherwise healthy and laying fine, but I don't see her getting better on her own. If I don't get any suggestions, I guess I'll follow the book:
Slit open the skin about an inch, slit open the crop about an inch (at right angle to the first cut?), empty her crop, isolate her and feed soft food for a while). Anybody done this successfully? I've caponized enough to know that you can almost take a chicken apart and put it back together again with no ill effects, but I'd rather not have to do that. She's a nice looking bird. 

Q -You should make certain that she has an impacted crop before you cut on her. Impacted crops are supposed to be rare. I would try giving her water and withholding food for a day to see what happens. Is she getting enough oyster shells?
Also, what type of anethesia do you use on a chicken when operating on it? If none, what keeps the bird from flapping around while you are trying to work?
A better description would be "pendulous crop" (another term, I believe, for "impacted crop")...its big enough that it drags and wears off feathers. She's getting plenty of oyster and other crushed clam shell...I live by the beach and break up all I can find for the chickens. She free ranges part of the day and eats lots of seaweed, grass and other stuff that's pretty rough so that may be contributing to the problem, but none of the rest of the flock have ever had it.

I've been injecting water directly into her crop and massaging it daily (since Friday)... too early to tell yet, its still big but feels a lot looser. And she's learning to avoid me...getting harder to catch.

So I haven't had to operate this time (yet), but operating on a chicken is a lot easier than it sounds. A running loop of cord around the legs and another around the wings (under the "armpits"), each with a 1-2# wt, hanging over opposite sides of a table keeps them motionless without anesthesia (and its better than 4 pairs of hands). This is my usual caponizing setup. If you're really going way inside you need to starve them of food and water for about 12hrs to empty their digestive system...gives you a lot more room. There's almost no bleeding. I've only lost a patient when I cut something I shouldn't have (there's an artery that runs along the back bone that's too easy to cut). I've never had problems with infection or pecking by other chickens...I keep the patients isolated from the others for an hour or so.
 

Q - I do not profess to have any vast experience - but I remember growing up with chickens, and spending long periods of time teaspooning
cooking oil into the beak of chickens with impacted crops to help massage the food through. 
Q - Get a tube of a laxative paste from your pet store or vet that is used for hairballs in cats. It is a mild laxative and is good for loosening the crop contents. The crops I have surgerized all had leafy contents causing the impaction.