Crop bra for hens?

[speckledhen]

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.

Sometimes, you just don't know until you clean out the crop and see if it's going to work again. What I recommended was for sour crop, mainly, not impacted crop, though it can help an impacted crop as well, if it's not too severe.

Marek's causes all sorts of things to not work well again, leaves them open for opportunistic infections, etc.

 

[karabou]

I thought I should write an update all these years later. My hen, Izzie Belle, with the pendulous crop was then 1.5 years old and the mobile vet I used wanted me to euthanize her. She's now 5.5 years old, still cruising along, in a crop bra made from an old sock. I think I've made about 15 of them by now. Occasionally I give her a crop vacation, but then her crop stops emptying and we have to put the bra back on. I think, from my years of chicken keeping, that it's simply sometimes a structural problem. The muscle just gets too stretched and can't go back into position.

 

[Crazy4Wyandottes]

I made my crop bra from an athletic sock (a big one) for my silkie. It was a piece of cake. I cut out the heel and measured about 2 inches and cut the sock off back from the cut heel. Put the sock over my hen's head, pull wings out through hole in the heel.

I then carefully cut extra sock material away and folded it in half to make a push up crop bra.

I have been battling the sour crop (pendulous crop) for 7 weeks: antibiotics, monistat, fast ing diet for 3 days, 3 days of yogurt, and then 3 days of scrambled eggs (crop reset diet, which was helpful), but this crop bra was my solution.

I'm on day #7 and crop is normal. After 7 weeks of battling this issue (and feeling rather hopeless), she's laying eggs again after seven weeks of not. And not head bobbing and uncomfortable.

The nutrition is getting down into her gizzard again and not fermenting.

Can you explain a little more about the cutting please? I need to make one and I don't understand.

 

[Texgal57]

Has anyone used this crop bra http://www.hensaver.com/Crop-Bra.html for hens with slow-emptying crops?

Or, has anyone sewed their own, and if so, do you have sewing instructions? (i.e., how tight to make the crop bra, how large to make the material, how to sew it so it stays on, etc.)

I purchased one from Hensaver and it really does work on the crop but since the straps are beige (my chicken is black) and they are knotted on the back they draw unwanted pecking.

 

[The White Lily]

Warning: I put my black chicken in a black bra I’d made myself, no problem with contrast attracting pecking, but after a couple of months of happily wearing it, she worked out how to unravel the elastic and shredded it within a day. Unfortunately in the process, she got the strong polyester threads from the elastic wound tight around her tongue and even though I noticed straight away because the bra had come off, and managed to cut her free, which was traumatic for both of us, she had a deep ligature cut from it all the way around her tongue

I fixed the bra and put it back on, thinking “what are the chances of that happening again?”, and within 24 hours she was in the same state with an even deeper cut that was even more traumatic for both of us to be getting the scissors into the bottom of the wound to cut the tightest wind of the thread. She is now eating normally and I hope healing, having a rest from the bra, and I am going back to the drawing board with my design.

Definitely NO exposed elastic or anything that can be shredded no matter how much she picks at it. I’d be worried about the same thing happening with something knitted like a sock. I am thinking maybe I can put the elastic straps inside a sturdy cotton drill sleeve, like with a scrunchie.

Clearly not every chicken does this, but please, if you do notice your chicken managing to unravel the bra, take IMMEDIATE action or she could lose her tongue.

 

[Texgal57]

I was thinking of using industrial Velcro, have you tired that? I would love to see how you made your bra.

 

[JJw]

So, back to the idea of a crop tuck....those of us who have had to do crop surgery to relieve and impacted crop...could we do the crop tuck ourselves by pinching up the crop and running some sutures through? I don't think the excess skin pucker would have to be cut away as long as the sutures were not tight together and blood flow was still available. But maybe just 2-4 sutures to hold the crop up... just thinking out loud.... would be less invasive than the crop surgery was, just wondering if it would work... anybody ever tried it?


My 10 year old Americana just had crop surgery on Saturday and is in her 2rd day of recovery. She is eating, drinking and had her first big poop in over two weeks! I've never been so happy to see a bird dropping! But twice now, when she has been pecking at food, liquid (and baby food puree) has pooled out of her mouth. Don't know if it is a crop issue or just from swelling from surgery...anyone have any experience with this? I was lucky enough to have a neighbor, who is a surgeon, to help (vet wanted upwards of $200) Best stitching job ever...But hoping her crop will start working like normal and not become pendulous from the impaction. It happen while we were gone for Christmas,(1 and a half weeks) so not sure how long it had been like that before I found it. Today I cut an ACE bandage down long enough to wrap around her crop twice. Any other suggestions would be welcome..

 

[tiny529]

My 10 year old Speckled Sussex had an impacted crop back in April (my neighbor was checking in on them during my vacation and gave them many pounds of lawn clippings). Massage, coconut oil, ACV, and probiotics seemed to get her back on track, but now she seems to have a pendulous crop. I fashioned a bra out of a self adhesive, disposable ace bandage, but I don’t know if I’ve got it on properly. I’d like to try the sock type. Can anyone post instructions on how to make one?

 

[Kristy1112]

This is the bra folded in half, which then makes her bloated (then) crop puff up and push up and out allowing the crop contents to empty into her gizzard. She's still in the bra, but the crop is normal sized.

 

[Kristy1112]

So, back to the idea of a crop tuck....those of us who have had to do crop surgery to relieve and impacted crop...could we do the crop tuck ourselves by pinching up the crop and running some sutures through? I don't think the excess skin pucker would have to be cut away as long as the sutures were not tight together and blood flow was still available. But maybe just 2-4 sutures to hold the crop up... just thinking out loud.... would be less invasive than the crop surgery was, just wondering if it would work... anybody ever tried it?


My 10 year old Americana just had crop surgery on Saturday and is in her 2rd day of recovery. She is eating, drinking and had her first big poop in over two weeks! I've never been so happy to see a bird dropping! But twice now, when she has been pecking at food, liquid (and baby food puree) has pooled out of her mouth. Don't know if it is a crop issue or just from swelling from surgery...anyone have any experience with this? I was lucky enough to have a neighbor, who is a surgeon, to help (vet wanted upwards of $200) Best stitching job ever...But hoping her crop will start working like normal and not become pendulous from the impaction. It happen while we were gone for Christmas,(1 and a half weeks) so not sure how long it had been like that before I found it. Today I cut an ACE bandage down long enough to wrap around her crop twice. Any other suggestions would be welcome..

I sure wish I knew your neighbor here in Vancouver Washington it has been hard to even find a vet because they're hardly any employees and they are all overwhelmed and can't make appointments they're just to understand here but anyways I got her in on an emergency visit finally that was 1:45 and then they wanted to possibly do surgery and they wanted $2,900 I love my chicken but I don't have that kind of money right now so I'm trying to come up with anything that I can I did get the medication in case her crap went sour and they gave me some lactulose to help but I've been using olive oil too