Crop bra designs?

[scoopsmom]

My hen has a pendulous crop and after several attempts trying various things I have decided to try a crop bra.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to make one and also if she must wear it 24/7? I have a big ace bandage I was going to try to use..

 

[azygous]

Recently I worked with two BYCers to fashion crop bras for their hens with pendulous crop. We came up with a simple "H" design using a 4 inch square scrap of canvas cloth or something similar. It involves sewing the 12 inch straps, made from elastic bandage, ACE or vet wrap, onto the cloth square. Velcro is secured to the straps to fasten.

 

[azygous]

Usually, once a hen develops pendulous crop, she will continue to be troubled by it. So, yes, she will need to wear the bra 24/7 so her crop will empty continually.

 

[scoopsmom]

Usually, once a hen develops pendulous crop, she will continue to be troubled by it. So, yes, she will need to wear the bra 24/7 so her crop will empty continually.

Thank you so much! I was also wondering, once she starts wearing it all the time is she allowed to eat all the same things as my other chickens? Scraps, scratch, foraging, etc? I heard scratch is hard to digest and foraging could be hard for her too..?

 

[azygous]

She should be able to eat normal stuff. The issue with pendulous crop is the crop is hanging too low for the contents to empty normally. But I would go easy on bulky stuff until she stabilizes.

Yogurt and boiled egg are good foods during the period following impacted crop issues if she's been struggling with that.

 

[Texgal57]

Oh, so the bra goes UNDER the crop, not on top of it?

 

[azygous]

Yes, under. It's why it's called a "bra". It lifts and supports just as the boob-bras do.

 

[scoopsmom]

Here are some pictures of my hen wearing her bra. It worked great for her. It was trial and error getting a design that worked but we wound up going with a hash tag (#) design. Similar to the picture shown a few threads up only the straps we used were much thinner. We used denim as the central square part cuz it's pretty sturdy and we felt like it lifted her up the best. Our was for a bantam hen tho. She did peck at it so every few months we had to replace it because it would fray but it was kept on her 24/7 the rest of her life. The other chickens didn't even seem to notice it which had been one of our concerns before. The pictures below are of when we first put it on her and then after having worn it awhile. It looks big when we first put it on but after time it molds to her and slips down a bit but that's because we used denim as I said.

 

[qwigoqwaga]

I wanted to post some of our designs for future reference since it was hard to find a lot of information about making a crop bra. Our speckled sussex had some kind of crop blockage starting back in March. She seems to be doing ok now without the crop bra; we just don't let her free range for too long so she can't gorge.

The first two attempts are here
The first one was a piece of fabric with a small fabric X across the middle that the ace wrap went through and then it criss-crossed on her back. When jumping on the roost she got her foot caught in the X, so we had to take it off her. The second one we just used more ace wrap to hold the fabric on. She got her feet tangled in that one too.

Next attempt here
This was a bandana that I cut a square in the middle of with long straps coming from each corner and then we tied it on her behind her neck and on her back under her wings. It held up ok, but the thin bandana material got torn easily so we couldn't reuse it. We just waited until it got too wet or dirty and took it off.

Final design here
You can see the actual design in the picture, although I think we ended up having to make the straps shorter and move the velcro in by like an inch. It velcroed behind her neck and on her back with those strap going under her wings. The velcro was much nicer and easier to take on and off and this worked pretty well. But since it was just cut fabric with loose ends and she was constantly pulling at whatever part of it she saw, the straps frayed so much we can't use it anymore. It'd have been better if we had been able to sew the edges over so there weren't loose strands for her to pick at or to wear out.

 

[Texgal57]

Thank you so much for posting this. Is the velcro sewed on?