Chicken crop problem

[Luckybaby]

I noticed that my chicken have a crop problem yesterday, since her crop is not empty after 12 hours without eating food and drinking water( I read that the crop is empty after 12 hours of last food and water intake). When I touched it, I can feel alot of the whole corn that she ate more than 19 hours ago, so I decided to make her drink about 5 teaspoon of olive oil and massage it several times after she drunk it. Two to three hours later, I can no longer feel any whole corn on her crop, but her crop is full of liquid(probably from drinking a lot of water and the olive oil that she drunk). I thought my problem is solved after that, but after 23 hours of drinking the olive oil, her crop is only 1/2-2/3 less than the size of it before I put her to her coop to sleep. It feels like it is full of liquid. Please share an effective and cheap solution to my problem.
Her poop looks like a watery solid material.

 

[AmyWho]

Any other symptoms?

 

[Luckybaby]

Any other symptoms?

No. Everything seems normal, except her crop.

 

[outdoorsii]

Gotta be Sour Crop (which means usually it smells either after you massage it/& or pick her up a lot - oh & the olive oil thing along w/massages good to do at least 2x's/day, put her on a no food & just a lil water for a cpl days...is her breastbone prominent? if u can feel it, she's probably starving herself to death, she could have impacted crop also, which I've dealt with & we did surgery & removed this from my Black copper maran's crop b/c she was a pig, always hungry, always had a swinging pendulous squishy crop...

I waited too long to do the surgery or it prolly woulda been successful but if u wait too long to treat symptoms (wks...months...) her stomach muscles will droop & never go back to the way they should so they can never digest things properly. After months of treatment I finally decided to put Copper down & it sucked Horrible lesson learned on my part!


Here's her eating her favorite Yogurt....which is a really good substitute once you let her empty her crop for 36+ hrs, after that start on the yogurt and even adding 1 tsp baking soda to 1 gal of water is good too, kinda like when we get heartburn

Copper before surgery, after cut feathers.

Cop after surgery! Her stomach just ballooned back up after a cpl weeks of her stomach wound healing...

Here's her before she got sick around 4.5 months old. She only got to lay like 2 wks then got sick
RIP sweet Copper

 

[Luckybaby]

Gotta be Sour Crop (which means usually it smells either after you massage it/& or pick her up a lot - oh & the olive oil thing along w/massages good to do at least 2x's/day, put her on a no food & just a lil water for a cpl days...is her breastbone prominent? if u can feel it, she's probably starving herself to death, she could have impacted crop also, which I've dealt with & we did surgery & removed this from my Black copper maran's crop b/c she was a pig, always hungry, always had a swinging pendulous squishy crop...

I waited too long to do the surgery or it prolly woulda been successful but if u wait too long to treat symptoms (wks...months...) her stomach muscles will droop & never go back to the way they should so they can never digest things properly. After months of treatment I finally decided to put Copper down & it sucked Horrible lesson learned on my part!


Here's her eating her favorite Yogurt....which is a really good substitute once you let her empty her crop for 36+ hrs, after that start on the yogurt and even adding 1 tsp baking soda to 1 gal of water is good too, kinda like when we get heartburn

Copper before surgery, after cut feathers.

Cop after surgery! Her stomach just ballooned back up after a cpl weeks of her stomach wound healing...

Here's her before she got sick around 4.5 months old. She only got to lay like 2 wks then got sick
RIP sweet Copper

My chicken with sour crop is probably overweight right now. I was feeding her a lot of whole corn, because I thought she will lose a lot of weight several days after she becomes broody. What kind of yogurt should I use? Should I use apple cider vinegar too? I still miss my chicken who died more than a year ago. I don't really know what is the cause of his death, but few days before he died, he have small appetite, and he can't fly out of his coop(before he got sick, he can do it easily). Then two days before he die, his leg is paralyzed. I feel guilty about letting him die from his illness without medication. I hate the fact that my parents doesn't want to take my sick pets to the vet, except maybe if it is my mom's dog, or at least buy medicine online or in the pet store.

My chicken probably would have lose it's right eye right now, if I didn't use my mom's credit card more than 2 months ago to buy vetrx for eyeworm treatment. She got very angry when she knew that I bought the $12 vetrx because she said we have little money left,since my grandma died on that month(I don't believe her though, since she continues to spend hundreds of dollars every month on things that she doesn't need, even after she died), and she insist that I bought it from a website who scams customers even though I told her that I always check the website of past scam reports if I am going to use her credit card. She just doesn't want to buy medicines for my sick chicken and cat, and maybe my lovebird and my blue fronted amazon.

 

[Luckybaby]

I found out today, that her crop is fully empty. Should I feed her whole corn and let her drink water again?

 

[shamforge]

Hello, I'm a new chicken owner and have some questions on crop issues. We are new chicken owners. We started with 4, and we lost two. Starting to think it was more where they came from than us. We are animal lovers and if anything go overboard and borderline obsess on taking care of them properly. One of them was just dead one morning with no symptoms. The other was breathing thru her mouth, gasped and basically just stopped growing. Green poo, and lost movement in her legs. Her toes curled and was never able to walk again. I took her to the vet, and he felt that even though her symptoms were very much like mereks, that she was more than likely a runt, a weak bird with congenital issues. I put her down and I was devastated. Now, a third has gotten ill. She started becoming lethargic and keeping to herself. Stopped roosting on her bar and stands off in the corner with her eyes closed. We put her in a hospital crate with electrolytes in her water and feed. We noticed her appetite is huge so thought she will probably ok, but poops very little and is runny. We noticed how puffy she looks in her chest. Very puffy. I felt for where I would think her crop is, and it doesn't feel squishy, but extremely hard. But the weird thing is it feels more like a bone and is very high her neck when she is just standing. She trenches out her neck and it seems at a lower position on her chest. Is that still a crop issue? Anyway, now have her on acv water with scrambled eggs soaked in olive oil. I massaged it for a bit but not sure I'm even doing it right, because like I said its so high up it feels like a bone. The vet isn't an option right now as I've just spent a fortune on the last chicken, and have a senior cat going in on Tuesday which is going to cost. This is just hard. I know in my heart we have done so much, but geez I'm starting to wonder if it's us? Will she die this way, or will it eventually work itself down? How long should I keep her on this diet? Will it sustain her overall health for a few days? Thank you for letting me vent. Advice is so appreciated. Shannon

 

[Luckybaby]

Hello, I'm a new chicken owner and have some questions on crop issues. We are new chicken owners. We started with 4, and we lost two. Starting to think it was more where they came from than us. We are animal lovers and if anything go overboard and borderline obsess on taking care of them properly. One of them was just dead one morning with no symptoms. The other was breathing thru her mouth, gasped and basically just stopped growing. Green poo, and lost movement in her legs. Her toes curled and was never able to walk again. I took her to the vet, and he felt that even though her symptoms were very much like mereks, that she was more than likely a runt, a weak bird with congenital issues. I put her down and I was devastated. Now, a third has gotten ill. She started becoming lethargic and keeping to herself. Stopped roosting on her bar and stands off in the corner with her eyes closed. We put her in a hospital crate with electrolytes in her water and feed. We noticed her appetite is huge so thought she will probably ok, but poops very little and is runny. We noticed how puffy she looks in her chest. Very puffy. I felt for where I would think her crop is, and it doesn't feel squishy, but extremely hard. But the weird thing is it feels more like a bone and is very high her neck when she is just standing. She trenches out her neck and it seems at a lower position on her chest. Is that still a crop issue? Anyway, now have her on acv water with scrambled eggs soaked in olive oil. I massaged it for a bit but not sure I'm even doing it right, because like I said its so high up it feels like a bone. The vet isn't an option right now as I've just spent a fortune on the last chicken, and have a senior cat going in on Tuesday which is going to cost. This is just hard. I know in my heart we have done so much, but geez I'm starting to wonder if it's us? Will she die this way, or will it eventually work itself down? How long should I keep her on this diet? Will it sustain her overall health for a few days? Thank you for letting me vent. Advice is so appreciated. Shannon

I don't think any of my chickens have marek's disease. One of my chickens died last year and at first, I thought it was marek's, because it can't stand up few days before it died, but after learning about botulism in chickens, the death of my chicken is more likely caused by botulism than merek's, since marek's disease is highly contagious, and none of my other chickens have it. I believe that your chicken have marek's disease, since your vet said it, and I don't have much info to differentiate between those disease that your chickens might have. According to wikipedia, it is a very contagious disease. My chicken have impacted crop before, since her crop is hard for more than 24 hours, and I use a syringe to force feed her olive oil. I did give her a lot of olive oil, maybe 3 teaspoon( I think that is too much, but she appears healthy until today), and massage her crop as if I am trying to seperate the food in the crop for few minutes. Few hours later, most of the food in her crop were already in her digestive system, since the size shrink significantly. I think what you feel while touching the neck is a neck bone. I have hard time imagining, feeling another hard object other than neck bone on the chicken's neck. If she is eating a lot, and pooping a little, then it might be impacted crop. Otherwise, your chicken might have swallowed something long and hard, or it have a disease.

 

[shamforge]

Thank you for your post....she died about an hour ago. Definitely some sort of blockage. I don't know. Sad. Confused. I certainly didn't think having chickens would be this hard? Shouldn't be right? 3 dead from my original 4? The remaining one is thriving. Oh well, learning. I'm an animal person, so seeing them die is hard. Thank you

 

[Eggcessive]

Thank you for your post....she died about an hour ago. Definitely some sort of blockage. I don't know. Sad. Confused. I certainly didn't think having chickens would be this hard? Shouldn't be right? 3 dead from my original 4? The remaining one is thriving. Oh well, learning. I'm an animal person, so seeing them die is hard. Thank you

Sorry for your loss. Some states will do a free necropsy on chickens--others will charge $80 and some charge more, but getting one may help you know how to deal with future chickens, especially if you need to vaccinate for Mareks. The body needs to be refrigerated, the fresher the better, and not frozen. If you don't want to have the state vet necropsy, you can try one yourself. A blocked crop or gizzard can be seen, as well as examining the intestines and other organs. Taking pictures for later questions online can help a great deal sometimes in finding answers. I just recently did my first, and found a blocked gizzard full of sunflower shells. Curled toe paralysis and not using legs, along with green poos in your fist chicken sounds very much like Mareks. Mareks can cause tumors that block the crop, proventriculus, and gizzard, as well as elsewhere in the body. here are a couple of links to read:
http://extension.unh.edu/resources/files/Resource000791_Rep813.pdf
https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/the-great-big-giant-mareks-disease-faq