ChickInnMama
Songster
- Feb 21, 2022
- 107
- 123
- 123
Hello,
We have a little hen named Evelyn
she’s a really small little Easter egger, she usually weighs about 3 lbs on a good day though she’s lost some weight due to this ongoing issue. About 2 weeks ago we were treating our chickens for mites and so we had to catch even our speedy littlest girlie (Evelyn is like the road runner 
she’s very small and fast and hard to catch and even though we’ve always handled our chickens a lot she’s always been standoffish). When we caught her we realized that her crop was rock hard, we left her overnight and then in the morning pulled her off the roost and checked and it had gone down a little but it was still super full. We brought her inside in a crate and we read online that we shouldn’t feed her for 24 hours or until it showed improvement so we did that, she did have water. We gave her olive oil and coconut oil intermittently and massaged her crop a few times a day. It went down a little. I then saw a YouTube video that said to do that once a hour, so we did that and it went down pretty quickly. However, it has never fully emptied. It will go down to almost empty but never fully empty. We have put her back outside with her friends but we massage her crop and give her coconut oil in the morning and at night (when she’s easily caught 
). She lays her little head on our shoulder as we massage so I think it must feel good. We are going to get her a crop bra because it doesn’t seem to be sagging down so maybe it’s pendulous crop? She is only just now 2 years old, so it’s not age. I will also add that I can always feel something in there, like a harder rubbery feeling in the bottom so I’m not sure if it’s a growth or something? We almost culled her on Monday because we just thought she isn’t fully recovering but we just couldn’t do it. We don’t want her to suffer so if at any point she seems in pain or it stops going down at all we will do that, these girls are livestock but they’ve become our pets too and we just can’t do it unless we have to, we will always put their wellbeing above what we want though. We cannot afford a vet for a chicken around us, there is only one and it’s more expensive to take a chicken. I was rereading the article that someone was so amazing to write about impacted crop and sour crop and at this point I’m at a loss. I did read about treating the gizzard with molasses? But I didn’t see instructions on how to do that or what an impacted gizzard would be symptom wise? Also another thing that I think is important… about 6 weeks ago when I let the girls out of the coops I saw a weird pink, small, rubbery thing in their coop. It was not a shell-less egg, I tried to squeeze it and it just wasn’t possible to squish it. I wish I had taken a picture but I didn’t have my phone and I didn’t think much of it at the time except to think “that’s so weird” I was really sick when I found it and I was just making it through each day. I only have my 3 littlest girls in that coop and Evelyn is one of them so I’m assuming it was from her. Could be a tumor or growth? I read that they can poop or organs? Maybe I’m reaching here, but there definitely seems to be an underlying cause for her crop issue. Thank you for any ideas or advice! I am attaching a picture of Evelyn and a picture of what she was pooping out when we found her with an impacted crop, it was all compacted grass because she’s eating a lot of grass and less grain. I started giving them fermented scratch grains again and she is eating that but won’t really touch her regular crumbs.
We have a little hen named Evelyn
she’s a really small little Easter egger, she usually weighs about 3 lbs on a good day though she’s lost some weight due to this ongoing issue. About 2 weeks ago we were treating our chickens for mites and so we had to catch even our speedy littlest girlie (Evelyn is like the road runner she’s very small and fast and hard to catch and even though we’ve always handled our chickens a lot she’s always been standoffish). When we caught her we realized that her crop was rock hard, we left her overnight and then in the morning pulled her off the roost and checked and it had gone down a little but it was still super full. We brought her inside in a crate and we read online that we shouldn’t feed her for 24 hours or until it showed improvement so we did that, she did have water. We gave her olive oil and coconut oil intermittently and massaged her crop a few times a day. It went down a little. I then saw a YouTube video that said to do that once a hour, so we did that and it went down pretty quickly. However, it has never fully emptied. It will go down to almost empty but never fully empty. We have put her back outside with her friends but we massage her crop and give her coconut oil in the morning and at night (when she’s easily caught ). She lays her little head on our shoulder as we massage so I think it must feel good. We are going to get her a crop bra because it doesn’t seem to be sagging down so maybe it’s pendulous crop? She is only just now 2 years old, so it’s not age. I will also add that I can always feel something in there, like a harder rubbery feeling in the bottom so I’m not sure if it’s a growth or something? We almost culled her on Monday because we just thought she isn’t fully recovering but we just couldn’t do it. We don’t want her to suffer so if at any point she seems in pain or it stops going down at all we will do that, these girls are livestock but they’ve become our pets too and we just can’t do it unless we have to, we will always put their wellbeing above what we want though. We cannot afford a vet for a chicken around us, there is only one and it’s more expensive to take a chicken. I was rereading the article that someone was so amazing to write about impacted crop and sour crop and at this point I’m at a loss. I did read about treating the gizzard with molasses? But I didn’t see instructions on how to do that or what an impacted gizzard would be symptom wise? Also another thing that I think is important… about 6 weeks ago when I let the girls out of the coops I saw a weird pink, small, rubbery thing in their coop. It was not a shell-less egg, I tried to squeeze it and it just wasn’t possible to squish it. I wish I had taken a picture but I didn’t have my phone and I didn’t think much of it at the time except to think “that’s so weird” I was really sick when I found it and I was just making it through each day. I only have my 3 littlest girls in that coop and Evelyn is one of them so I’m assuming it was from her. Could be a tumor or growth? I read that they can poop or organs? Maybe I’m reaching here, but there definitely seems to be an underlying cause for her crop issue. Thank you for any ideas or advice! I am attaching a picture of Evelyn and a picture of what she was pooping out when we found her with an impacted crop, it was all compacted grass because she’s eating a lot of grass and less grain. I started giving them fermented scratch grains again and she is eating that but won’t really touch her regular crumbs.
