12 week old roo with sour crop. Not going away.

[ChickenCameFirst]

Hello, I have a young roo who I think has sour crop. It’s not impacted crop because his crop is squishy, and the size of a grapefruit. I found an article here on how to treat it and got the miconazole cream that the poster said to try. It’s been about a week and it hasn’t gotten any better. MAYBE slightly larger. He’s still eats and drinks happily, and even moves around the run so he’s not lethargic. It does weigh him down though so he does lean forward.
Should I give some coconut oil and try treat for impacted crop anyway? Any advice is greatly appreciated on how to move forward.

 

[alinas2010]

Hello, I have a young roo who I think has sour crop. It’s not impacted crop because his crop is squishy, and the size of a grapefruit. I found an article here on how to treat it and got the miconazole cream that the poster said to try. It’s been about a week and it hasn’t gotten any better. MAYBE slightly larger. He’s still eats and drinks happily, and even moves around the run so he’s not lethargic. It does weigh him down though so he does lean forward.
Should I give some coconut oil and try treat for impacted crop anyway? Any advice is greatly appreciated on how to move forward.

Hey sorry about your roo. If he were mine, I would try some crop massages with oil since you haven’t seen any improvement. Try letting him peck at coconut oil and massage his crop. Even Olive oil will work if you can get him to drink it. Sometimes I mix a bit of olive oil in with a raw egg and they’ll go for it. Don’t try to force feed him olive oil, tho, you don’t want him to aspirate.

Sometimes crop issues aren’t straightforward. In my experience, when you see signs of a crop not emptying overnight, it can mean there is a blockage, even if the contents aren’t hard or impacted. When the blockage doesn’t get resolved, that is one time when they can develop sour crop since the contents sit there with nowhere to go. You will want to treat the blockage so emptying can begin. It’s possible sour crop can be cause by things like antibiotics or just plain imbalance, also, which won’t involve a blockage. Sometimes crop issues are hard to diagnose and treat, I get that!

Here is a great article by @azygous about crop issues:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...w-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/

It’s possible if he’s been battling this for a while his crop may be stretched out. It can be helpful to support the crop during massaging and that could get it to empty a bit once the blockage is removed. After his crop empties he may have pendulous crop and may need it further supported for a while. However, mine have always bounced back a few days or so after treating. So just keep an eye out for that.

Let us know how he does with massages