I'm kind of new to this posting, and there seems to be a million posts on sour crop. I have three little pullets I'm raising to add to the flock. Since they are two months old, I saw no problem in putting them in a pen outside and letting them do a little scratching, and get some fresh air. Plus the big chickens could walk around their cage and get use to them.
Well, one of the girls started cocking her neck around funny and opening her mouth. When I picked them up to move them out to the outside pen one morning, I could feel her crop was all swollen and squishy. I had heard about sour crop so I did some investigating here on BYC.
I tried a lot of different things. I did get her to vomit, but I held her in a way that felt natural for her and not totally upside down and backwards because I didn't want her to aspirate. That helped, she did spit out a lot of green stuff. Maybe long grass? But her crop did not go down. I feed her yogurt, and I tried the olive oil idea, and gave her lots of water via syringe. Still her crop was squishy so I thought maybe this has led to a yeast infection. So I tried the monistat cure. Still a problem. All this time she would poop and she didn't seem particularly lethargic. But still the crop didn't go down.
I read about Nyastatin and went in search of that at the feed store. They had very little medicinal things for chickens. But the feed store clerk told me one of their customers swears by pineapple juice. So I read up on that. Sort of made sense since pineapple, and papaya too both have Bromelain in them that acts as a natural digestive enzyme. But one site advised to mix it with apple sauce too so it wasn't so acidic, and make sure both were sugar free. Instead of trying to find sugar free I just whirled up an apple and some fresh pineapple with a little water in the Vitamix. I offered that to her in a bowl and she ate about half of it. Her sisters finished off the rest of it that night! I had kept them separate during the day as I didn't want her to have the crumbles they were eating.
This morning, crop was back down to normal. Yeah! But I think I will keep her separate for a few days yet and just feed her soft foods and more apple sauce/pineapple mixture.
If you have tried a number of different things and nothing has worked, you might as well give this a shot. Worked for my pullet Tiny Weeney.
Well, one of the girls started cocking her neck around funny and opening her mouth. When I picked them up to move them out to the outside pen one morning, I could feel her crop was all swollen and squishy. I had heard about sour crop so I did some investigating here on BYC.
I tried a lot of different things. I did get her to vomit, but I held her in a way that felt natural for her and not totally upside down and backwards because I didn't want her to aspirate. That helped, she did spit out a lot of green stuff. Maybe long grass? But her crop did not go down. I feed her yogurt, and I tried the olive oil idea, and gave her lots of water via syringe. Still her crop was squishy so I thought maybe this has led to a yeast infection. So I tried the monistat cure. Still a problem. All this time she would poop and she didn't seem particularly lethargic. But still the crop didn't go down.
I read about Nyastatin and went in search of that at the feed store. They had very little medicinal things for chickens. But the feed store clerk told me one of their customers swears by pineapple juice. So I read up on that. Sort of made sense since pineapple, and papaya too both have Bromelain in them that acts as a natural digestive enzyme. But one site advised to mix it with apple sauce too so it wasn't so acidic, and make sure both were sugar free. Instead of trying to find sugar free I just whirled up an apple and some fresh pineapple with a little water in the Vitamix. I offered that to her in a bowl and she ate about half of it. Her sisters finished off the rest of it that night! I had kept them separate during the day as I didn't want her to have the crumbles they were eating.
This morning, crop was back down to normal. Yeah! But I think I will keep her separate for a few days yet and just feed her soft foods and more apple sauce/pineapple mixture.
If you have tried a number of different things and nothing has worked, you might as well give this a shot. Worked for my pullet Tiny Weeney.
