Atrophied Crop in Muscovy Duck

[JanetMarie]

Butchered a Muscovy drake this morning because we have too many. The crop was difficult to find, and when I found it, it was just a dried up small thin shell. It obviously has not been working or used. The gizzard had mostly sand in it, and I didn't examine the intestines, and now they're buried. He seemed healthy, and his other organs looked healthy.

I think if he wasn't butchered, he would have slowly starved to death.

I'm interested to know if anyone else has encountered a crop like this while butchering.

 

[sourland]

I'm curious to see what others have to say about this. In my experience, muscovies have always had rather insignificant crops.

 

[JanetMarie]

The other thought is, can a bird survive and be healthy with a non-functioning crop (without impaction, food just moving straight through) or removed crop, as long as it eats enough while awake?

 

[Isaac 0]

If the gizzard was majorly composed of sand, I would suspect a sand impaction. Was the bird underweight at all?

 

[JanetMarie]

If the gizzard was majorly composed of sand, I would suspect a sand impaction. Was the bird underweight at all?

No, not underweight. His breast was full. He's in the oven roasting now.

There wasn't much in his gizzard compared to others that have been butchered before.

 

[JanetMarie]

I wonder if it was congenital, and as Sourland suggested, he never had much of a crop.

 

[JanetMarie]

I found this:

https://www.ducks.org/conservation/waterfowl-research-science/understanding-waterfowl-duck-digestion

But what was the dried up thing?

 

[Isaac 0]

I'm not sure what you mean by dried up, but since you butchered in the morning it would be expected for the crop to be empty. I have noted Roosters having very insignificant crops, even in the evening when it should have been fairly full.

 

[JanetMarie]

I'm not sure what you mean by dried up, but since you butchered in the morning it would be expected for the crop to be empty. I have noted Roosters having very insignificant crops, even in the evening when it should have been fairly full.

As described in the first post. Dried up, and thin like it hasn't been used. Not the same as a rooster's small crop from being emptied.

But now I'm questioning what I actually saw and I didn't take pictures.