Crop bra for hens?

[speckledhen]

Just to clarify for some folks who don't understand: Crop bras are NOT for impacted crops! They might make that worse. They are for a pendulous crop condition where the muscles are loose and the crop hangs down so food is lower than the hole it must go through to get to the next stage. It lifts up the crop to help food move along. The crop may impact when food just sits, but it will sour first.

I lost more than one Blue Orp hen to pendulous crop issues. It is genetic. At some point, the crop will just cease to function entirely and you either do expensive surgery or you put down the bird who will starve. My friend's veterinarian consulted about my Blue Orp hen's daughter she owned (both had pendulous crop)-he said he could do a "crop tuck" but the muscles would just become loose again and you'd be back to square one. Both died at the age of four from their genetic issue.

 

[Sue Gremlin]

Thanks for the info, Speckledhen, that's good to know.

 

[speckledhen]

Thanks for the info, Speckledhen, that's good to know.

You're welcome. Just wanted to be sure folks know that a crop bra is not just some weirdo fashion statement for chickens.

 

[Sue Gremlin]

When I discovered one of my chickens has a pendulous crop, Google searches gave relatively confusing information. Most of them said I needed to empty her crop every day to prevent sour crop or an impaction. She is fine and I didn't want to put her through that if it was not necessary. What you said actually does make quite a bit of sense.

I got her a crop bra and will put it on her if and when she starts to show any sign of trouble from it. At first I understood that a bra would help to heal the muscle defect. Correct me if I am wrong, but now I understand it as a means of keeping the crop from bulging though the herniation in the muscle so it can work properly. When I put it on her, I will have to keep it on her for the rest of her life. Is that correct?

 

[speckledhen]

When I discovered one of my chickens has a pendulous crop, Google searches gave relatively confusing information. Most of them said I needed to empty her crop every day to prevent sour crop or an impaction. She is fine and I didn't want to put her through that if it was not necessary. What you said actually does make quite a bit of sense.

I got her a crop bra and will put it on her if and when she starts to show any sign of trouble from it. At first I understood that a bra would help to heal the muscle defect. Correct me if I am wrong, but now I understand it as a means of keeping the crop from bulging though the herniation in the muscle so it can work properly. When I put it on her, I will have to keep it on her for the rest of her life. Is that correct?

If she has pendulous crop, it will only get worse, so yes, if you are using this device to help her, she will always need it. I've only heard it described as "loose muscles" not a herniation, though. We've done crop surgery to remove impacted food so we know that the crop is right there, just through the skin, not much muscle to herniate through. The musculature is just prone to becoming too flaccid to work properly.

With sour crop, I'd do everything else before attempting to empty it. They choke/ aspirate so darn easily and they die quickly when that happens. Been there, too, when a hen's crop was just so full, she began upchucking as I was carrying her to the house to decide what to do with her. She died in my arms. I would not try to empty the crop with sour crop. You withhold food for 24 hours, water only with organic ACV in it for pH, then you may add a little plain, no sugar yogurt the next day, then the 3rd day she may have a little scrambled egg. All the while, you do massage the crop gently, never pushing upward. That is sour crop treatment. You can, instead of ACV, use acidified copper sulfate powder in the water, changed daily. I never try to empty a soured crop after my own experiences with it.

Impacted crop is a different animal, BUT usually, a crop issue is a symptom of something else wrong, not the actual main problem. Sour crop can mean the bird got hold of moldy feed somewhere. Had that happen when they ate around the bottom of a fenced off compost pile. Also, another situation with feed that had mold at the bottom of the bag, undiscovered until too late. Sometimes, impacted crop means the crop simply is not working, not that it is truly stopped up from the wrong food ingested.

 

[JanetMarie]

In 2011 my Buff Orpington rooster had a severely impacted crop that was huge, stretched and did not work. As part of his therapy I wrapped an ACE elastic bandage around him to compress it (I believe 3"). I had it wrapped around his front over the crop twice and secured it to itself with a safety pin on his back. I squeezed and massaged his crop every few hours, and as his crop decreased in size I had to tighten, or replace the bandage. His crop did shrink to normal size and it started to work on it's own again. He didn't have to keep wearing the bandage any longer, and his crop stayed normal.

 

[speckledhen]

In 2011 my Buff Orpington rooster had a severely impacted crop that was huge, stretched and did not work. As part of his therapy I wrapped an ACE elastic bandage around him to compress it (I believe 3"). I had it wrapped around his front over the crop twice and secured it to itself with a safety pin on his back. I squeezed and massaged his crop every few hours, and as his crop decreased in size I had to tighten, or replace the bandage. His crop did shrink to normal size and it started to work on it's own again. He didn't have to keep wearing the bandage any longer, and his crop stayed normal.

Sounds like you had a situation specific to something he gorged on. Most roosters don't seem to be prone to crop problems, probably because they eat very little compared to the hens. Massage is the preferred method for impacted crop (as well as removing food for a couple of days, of course) What the bandage was doing in his case was pushing the food toward the hole at the back of the crop and as you massaged and broke up whatever was causing the obstruction, it was being pushed out of the crop bit by bit. I'm glad that worked out for him!

The only rooster I ever had with a crop issue was a porcelain d'Anver whose crop became impacted due to a systemic issue of some sort. His color was very purple, first thing I noticed, then saw his crop was hard, difficult to really see right away because this breed has a bull chest anyway. We did crop surgery to remove all the impacted feed and it was successful, but something was wrong, possibly with his heart and he died a couple of days later. He's the only male I've ever seen here with a crop issue. A little bit later, maybe a week or so, another breeder told me he found one of his breeding males with a purple comb and impacted, hard crop too. The thing is if you remove feed from an impacted crop that has become impacted because the bird's systems are just shutting down, it may never work again, even if it is emptied. The crop is a barometer for the system of the bird, I've found.

 

[JanetMarie]

Sounds like you had a situation specific to something he gorged on. Most roosters don't seem to be prone to crop problems, probably because they eat very little compared to the hens. Massage is the preferred method for impacted crop (as well as removing food for a couple of days, of course) What the bandage was doing in his case was pushing the food toward the hole at the back of the crop and as you massaged and broke up whatever was causing the obstruction, it was being pushed out of the crop bit by bit. I'm glad that worked out for him!

I believe grass started the impaction and as he ate other food it couldn't get beyond the grass. The bandage also helped him to regain muscle tone in his crop by compressing it 24/7.

 

[speckledhen]

I believe grass started the impaction and as he ate other food it couldn't get beyond the grass. The bandage also helped him to regain muscle tone in his crop by compressing it 24/7.

I think impacted crops, true impacted crops caused by fibrous stuff, are really the exception rather than the rule. Yours was one of those. I've never seen one of that type here, only the kind where the crop just quits due to some internal issue, being the first organ to shut down, and then food backs up, but the food itself was never the cause of the impaction.

 

[aldarita]

I think impacted crops, true impacted crops caused by fibrous stuff, are really the exception rather than the rule. Yours was one of those. I've never seen one of that type here, only the kind where the crop just quits due to some internal issue, being the first organ to shut down, and then food backs up, but the food itself was never the cause of the impaction.

How can you tell the difference from a true impacted crop and one when the organ shuts down? I recently had a pullet with impacted crop, I took her to the vet and she flushed it. This is my first experience with this problem (only three years keeping chickens). She is doing fine now, however since it took me a while to figure out what was wrong with her, she had a very bad infection that was treated with antibiotics. The vet bill went sky high so at this point I would like to be able to determine if it is a true impacted crop or something more complicated. I also have Marek's in my flock (found out last spring with a necropsy) and I read that impacted crop could be one of the symptoms.
I guess what one could do is what you recommend, which is isolate the bird and stop any food for a day, just water with organic ACV, massage several times a day, give some plain yogurt the second day and hope for the best.