Chicken excessively drinking water, then 'vomiting' it back up

[Tom214]

Over the last 3 days Hettie (around 2 years old mixed breed ex-battery egg hen) has started showing strange drinking habits.

She goes and has a large drink of water, wanders off a little distance and brings most of it back up then redrinks some of it. It only happened once or twice the first day but today she was doing it 4 or 5 times in a row having a break for an hour or so then doing it again. This is worrying in itself but she's also soaking her chest and the entire enclosure floor, which in the middle of winter I'm concerned might also make the other girls ill.

In herself Hettie is fine, she's still bright and inquisitive, and still eating well. Her crop feels relatively liquid filled, but I think that's mostly just how much water she's been drinking, as there's no bad smell and she isn't showing any other symptoms of sour crop.

Has anyone else seen anything like this? and does anyone have any helpful advice they could give me?

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I had something similar happen to one of my hens. Mine had an enlarged crop as well. I caught her and gently massaged her crop for a few minutes. I did work some of the extra water out too. It must have dislodged whatever was plugging her up and she was okay the next day, so it's worth a try.

 

[Tom214]

Thanks. I gave her a few crop massages yesterday afternoon and this morning. Her crop had emptied overnight and she's stopped bringing her water back up today.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

That's good to hear. Hopefully that's all it takes. Do it again if necessary.