Crop massage technique?

[briggate]

After reading some of the posts here about impacted crops, I'm sure that's what is afflicting nearly all of my birds. So I want to do massage, and offer them lots of water and try to get some olive oil into them. Any suggestions on how to do the massage? Do you just try to push around the contents of the crop, or are you trying to move it one direction or the other?
Also just read that cedar is toxic- we have mixed cedar shavings and cypress shavings and put in their coop- so might that be a contributing problem? They've never had a crop problem, and we've been seeing exceptional egg laying from them lately. They are still eating routinely -almost ravenously, in my opinion, and they get a decent amount of water throughout the day.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

What are the symptoms you are seeing? It would be highly unusual for the flock to all get impacted crop at once I would think. Let us help if possible.

 

[briggate]

We have 4 breeds- and are only seeing this in our Australorps and RIR's. We only have 2 birds of other breeds, so this is most of our flock of 10. We are noticing the large crop in the mornings, but by late afternoon all of them (except the 2 odd birds) have much more distended crops. They are all still eating well, but we are seeing a lot of runny poop as well.
I fed them their 3cups of feed mixed with 2c water and about 1/2 oz. olive oil this a.m. Think they are possibly just not emptying their crops each night? Most of them are the dickens to catch so I was not looking forward to trying the massage - hoping the warm oil/water/feed mix would help. Was going to get some plain yogurt today at the store and try that later on.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

We have 4 breeds- and are only seeing this in our Australorps and RIR's. We only have 2 birds of other breeds, so this is most of our flock of 10. We are noticing the large crop in the mornings, but by late afternoon all of them (except the 2 odd birds) have much more distended crops. They are all still eating well, but we are seeing a lot of runny poop as well.
I fed them their 3cups of feed mixed with 2c water and about 1/2 oz. olive oil this a.m. Think they are possibly just not emptying their crops each night? Most of them are the dickens to catch so I was not looking forward to trying the massage - hoping the warm oil/water/feed mix would help. Was going to get some plain yogurt today at the store and try that later on.

This link gives helpful information down at the bottom regarding droppings:
http://www.ca.uky.edu/poultryprofit...natomy_and_Physiology/Chapter3_digestive.html

If their crops aren't empty in the mornings when you let them out of the coop then you might be dealing with a crop problem - maybe sour or impacted crop. There was an interesting thread:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/630307/sour-crop-cured-with-monistat

You might also investigate whether you are serving long pieces of grass to them which they are eating, or if you have a compost pile where they are eating old moldy feed. Both of these can cause crop problems I have read.