Heres a funny story ....so last night I was on a homesteading board ive belonged to for several years. A member posted that a hen had developed "water belly" i freaked out and of course , in my evening flock inspection i noted one of my RIR had a large bulge in her breast, bigger than any other. It kind of floated around , unnaturally in my mind, when she was scratching. I had it in my head it was definitely something to freak about. Googled and came across a BYC thread from 2013.. The girls chicken died, unfortunately, but there were a couple posts explaining the crop being filled with food and emptied overnight. Since my girl was acting normally i resisted the urge to catch her and make her miserable by a close examination...and went to bed.
This morning , when I opened the coop, they all came out and I watched them closely. All normal shape crops.
Even The biggest , most dominate hen, who had the unnatural bulge was slick and lean.
It occured to me that alot of my google searches land me on a BYC thread so I figured I should probably just go ahead and join.