Check out the chest of my rooster...

[chooks4life]

X2 what enola said.

I've read the chicken's crop is almost always on the RIGHT, not the left.

Yesterday I looked, and ALL 3 of my hens had crops on the RIGHT, not the left.

Nevertheless, it's almost always on the LEFT, not the right, according to everything I've read, and according to my personal experience. (There is a genetic basis for it, so obviously some family lines would predominantly show left or right sided crops in offspring.)

In ALL the many hundreds of chickens I've kept over the years (significantly larger sample than 3, and representing a far wider genetic sample) the crops have always been on the LEFT. Not the right.

(Not sure why we're using capitals to distinguish between right and left, seems a simple enough difference the average person doesn't need it emphasized, lol.)

This doesn't mean what you've read was wrong, doesn't mean your birds are aberrations, neither is the reverse true; all it means is the people you've read were familiar with birds contrary to those the people I've read were familiar with.

Here is a photo from the Chicken Chick, but if you do a google search on Chicken Large Crop and look at images, your bird does not look unusual to me.

Doesn't look unusual for what, though? That's the important part. It looks unusual for its coloration and breed type, I reckon. It's not a Cornish after all.

If TCC is your source of info on crop positioning, I'd just like to offer a caution there, that site has espoused some seriously incorrect information before, from incredibly dubious sources.

I agree, there's nothing weird about the crop unless it doesn't go down overnight.

But that body is plain weird. You said before your Speckled Sussex looks like this bird does... If so, it's probably not purebred; that's a hefty meat type body, not found in other breeds.

Best wishes.

 

[AnnieSantiago]

Can you post more photos?

Front views?

Regarding right and left, maybe chickens in Australia have crops on the left.
It wouldn't surprise me.
Other things are opposite, like the seasons.

 

[chooks4life]

Regarding right and left, maybe chickens in Australia have crops on the left.
It wouldn't surprise me.
Other things are opposite, like the seasons.

It was on the news recently that some authorities are considering adopting a 5 or 6 season cycle for Australia since adopting European seasons doesn't really apply here, it's a poor copy-paste, lol. However I doubt we've had chooks for long enough to establish a completely reliable trait like that, across all gene pools; many breeds in Australia are very inbred because imports were closed very early on into our history of colonization. I've had dozens of genetic lines from the very common to the very rare, so far. Also the sources I read are almost exclusively American or European, we're only just coming into our own in terms of information wealth.

Based on all that, I suspect the actual primary difference lies in what breeds you and I have been keeping and reading up about, and the authors we were reading from and what breeds they kept.

X2 on the request for photos, might help, if that boy is hen feathered on one side we have our answer. He certainly isn't developed as much as he should be given his feathering, that's a rather 'point of lay' crest LOL.

Best wishes.

 

[fshinggrl]

Old thread. it was definitely not looking right. It was like there was a third 'wing,' He did pass away over the winter. I never saw him struggle or anything. One day he was just dead in the coop.

 

[chooks4life]

Guess we'll never know for sure what happened there, but it sure did look odd. Ah well, RIP strange rooster.

Best wishes.