Crop issues- or not?

[Coco Hetz]

Our 3 week old chick has a crop that doesn't seem to go down overnight. However, she's eating, drinking, pooping, and acting fine, and it doesn't seem like the crop has grown even though we've noticed this problem over the past week. We isolated her and have given messages- it goes from feeling non-existent, to mushy, to hard, in a different order over and over. It did go down after a few hours but she was so noisy after a while I gave her a paste of her food at midnight and in the morning the crop was still a bit enlarged.

Can some chicks just be larger in that area? Should we keep trying- and what?

 

[azygous]

Let her overall behavior dictate your concerns. Poop condition is second to indicate any health issue. Normal chicks are active and eat and drink normally and poop regular solid poops with an occasional smelly cecal poop.

A chick that has a crop issue will often extend its neck and gape its beak. A serious crop issue or digestive system blockage will cause some neck gyrations that are unmistakable in telling you the chick is very uncomfortable.

If there's a serious blockage beyond the crop, cecal poops will cease and fluids will be expelled without forming solid urates. You will see only chalky white liquid poopsand a lot of wetness. This causes a chick to drink a lot of water and to obsess over picking up grit.

Absent the above symptoms, your chick is probably just fine, but continue to monitor the crop each morning in case a problem may be developing.