One Saturday afternoon, Maia, my female Harris' caught a pheasant, being the first of the season I allowed her her fill
( well almost, I never crop a bird to capacity) This was 16:00 hrs
Sunday 10:00 the crop was still about half full, I wasn't too worried at this point as she has "sat" on a crop for 22hrs once before.
By 16:00 hrs ( 24 hrs after cropping up) Sunday I was getting a little worried, to say the least, so I crop tubed her with 10ml of sterile saline in the hope that this would get things moving. ( her breath was begining to smell at this point)
2 anxious hours past but nothing else, again I gave her 10 ml of saline via a crop tube, this time gently massaging the crop to mix and dilute the contents a little. her breath smelled of fish rather pungently and reminisant of a penquine enclosure at the local zoo, however her general demeanour was good, bright not sunken eyes, though her wings drooped a little, she was sitting on her bow seemingly quite relaxed, on one foot, if a little subdued
Again 2 hrs past and so did a few very wet mutes, but the crop was still the same size, this led me to believe that the liquid was finding its way past the "impaction"
At this point I gave her 5ml of cod liver oil, in an effort to lubricate the impacted mass, and again massaged gently around the crop, and settled down next to her, on the sofa for a very restless night........
At 07:00 hrs Monday morning, she regurgitated the (remaning) entire contents of her crop all over the living room, carpet, thank God I had put down an old sheet !!!! BOY did it smell !!!
That was stage one over with but still a long way to go.
all fairly conventional so far, but then I have been "accused" of being unconventional in my approach to falconry, in the past, and in this section I revert to type.
About an hr later I gave her 5ml of saline via a crop tube, but this time I added 1 drop of Echinacea & 2 drops of propolis, both Homoeopapathic treatments Echinacea being a booster for the immune system, harvested from the "purple cornflower" which grows in North America and Propolis, is harvested from various trees and buds by bees to add into the construction of the egg cells as a "anti-oxident"
As it was a mild day I put her back in the mews with minal disturbance, you know how it is you feel rough, you want to be left alone....
Mid day monday she was still on her favorite perch ( she is free lofted all year round) looking ok and quite relaxed.
By 16:00hrs ( 48 hrs later) she was begining to "ask" for food, however I didn't oblige. Her breath still smelled a little.
Tuesday 16:00hrs having watched her periodically through the day, she was now moving around the mews so I gave her 3, 3day old chick heads cut in half and injected with 2 drops propolis and 1 drop Echinacea, in 1 ml of sterile saline. (in total) the reason behind this was that chick heads are very low in just about everything and the small amount of casting would / should stimulate the digestive tract and the casts should hopefully remove any minor traces of "crap" that remained
Wednesday 1600 hrs, much more vocal today around feeding time and even peering up the"food shute" that I use sometimes.so I gave 4 chick heads, halved, injected with the same volumes as before.
Thursday 16:00 hrs shouting for food, this time when I tried to pick her up the little git was playing hide and seek, running round the mews, then at the last minute she would fly to a high perch, yep ! she back to normal !! 4 whole chick heads given this time again they were injected with the medicine, as before. prior to that I weighd her in at 2.2 1/2 oz as this was her hunting weight on the previous Sat. and she hadn't eaten hardly at all then she must have digested half of her crop. I wonder why only half ? in the regurgitated mess of Monday, there were a few feathers presant, I wonder if one or two of these blocked the exit from the crop ......... I also know that she didn't eat any bones, but did (as always ) go straight for the mesenteric membrane and the adipose tissue ( fat depots) around the abdomen.
The treatment continued along the same lines for a total of 7 days.
I am not advocating that this is the only way to treat sour crop, but if my experiance is of some help to someone else, then all well and good.
Although Maia was obviously very ill, she showed only very minor signs of "ill Health" and it is also easy to see now, how birds have died of this condition, in the past, as the signs of ill heath are so easilly disguised by a sick bird and very dificult to spot. ( apart from the lump in her crop of course)
I think the key phrase has to be, "know your bird and be damned vigilant"
I Still sweat every time I read this, thinking what could have very easilly been.............