Sour crop in chicks! Help

[guineas in Maine]

Before you say it, I keep reading on this forum that chicks don't get sour crop. So I'm asking for real investigative thinking and symptom analysis, not what you read in a city girl book.
I have an entire hatch of now 6 day olds, a few have died, that have all the symptoms of sour crop.

• they all have mushy watery distended crops
• throw up water and
• have bubbly saliva drooling
• lethargic and laying down on their sides with
• heads cranked back like they can't stand the pain or breathe
• gasping motions with beaks
• spasms, then limp, eventually die.

they are

• in a sanitized clean brooder with kiln dried heat treated pine shavings since day1
• have ACV water to drink and
• medicated feed
• lively and rambunctious with good energy and appetites until the last 2 days

with their feed and water, and clean environment, i cannot swallow the coccidiosis answer.

does anybody know of any other disease that mimics sour crop with all these other symptoms, and have any idea where it could have come from,

i can only think contaminated feed at this point. i use filtered zero water, and ACV. bag of feed fresh off the shelf at TS, purina medicated crumble starter grower.

can this be bacterial from the incubator? i sterilized the bator but no egg is sterile, and after 21 days of heat and humidity could they have gotten something off the shells at hatching?

anything genetic that anybody knows about?

i have never seen this before and i have hatched out for the last 9 years.

please, has anybody else experienced this themselves? or have a really good logical explanation from other experiences?
the babies are dying here.
thanks,

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Please post photos of your brooder, the chicks, their poop, etc.

If you have a video of their actions, please upload to youtube and provide a link, the BYC upload does not work.

What is the temperature on the warm and cold side of the brooder?

Are you using a heat plate or heat lamp? If a heat lamp - is the bulb new? Have you used the bulb previously with no issues? Is it teflon?

If you lose another, sending the body to your state lab will give you the best answers, you can look it up here: https://www.metzerfarms.com/poultry-labs.html

Got links to the threads where it's said that chicks don't get sour crop?

A lot of things affect chick(en)s, so yes, they can get sour crop.

Do you provide your chicks with grit?

Often crop symptoms are the result of an underlying disease, infection, illness, condition, etc. Some of the symptoms you describe are neurological.

Avian Encephalomyelitis comes to mind, but not a complete fit.

I'd begin vitamin therapy - 400IU Vitamin E and 1/4 tablet B-Complex give orally to each chick once daily. This combo is used to treat neurological symptoms like Wry Neck.

I'd also address the crops. Get some coconut oil into them. See if the crops will empty. Provide grit. If you notice sourness, then begin giving Miconazole or Clotrimazole twice a day for 7 days, don't stop even if they improve.

Coccidiosis can absolutely show up in sanitized brooders and in chicks that have never touch ground. Getting a fecal float will tell you if it's part of the problem as well.
Let's see the poop and chicks.

 

[Afickett]

My two 2 week old buff orps are currently experiencing the symptoms you listed above. My other chicks are fine though. I got them all from TSC. They will go through the terrifying symptoms you listed then act normal. I just bought Purina probiotics and added it to their water. I've been checking on them every few hours too. It sure seems like sour crop to me, but I'm new to this.