One of my hens chicks had to be put down today. She has/had 13. For about the last week I noticed one was about half the size of the others. I didn't really think much of it at the time, have had a few runts over the years. 3 days ago it would run to catch up to the rest and then start going to sleep.
I caught it for a closer look. It had a HUGE crop that felt like it was full of putty and it's little body was really thin. Impaction. From it's size it has been like this for a while.
I fed it some molasses to see if things would get moving. The next day it seemed to be quite a bit better. I gave some more molasses to help it a little more.
It was doing well till today. This morning it was slow to get out of the Broody box with the rest. As the day progressed it just got worse. This afternoon it was really bad, so I caught it again.
The crop was over full, but this time it was so weak that it was having trouble breathing. Even if I had tried to help it I don't think it would have been able to pull out of it this time.
From what I can tell, it got impacted a while back. It was eating and just packing the little crop fuller and fuller. This stretched it and created a pendulous crop. This is when the muscles/tends are too weak to compress the crop. As a result the bird cannot empty it's crop and this leads to chronic sour crop.
I decided to euthanize the poor little one. In truth it probably would have died within a couple hours, but I felt it shouldn't have to suffer that long just to die slowly.
Matt
I caught it for a closer look. It had a HUGE crop that felt like it was full of putty and it's little body was really thin. Impaction. From it's size it has been like this for a while.
I fed it some molasses to see if things would get moving. The next day it seemed to be quite a bit better. I gave some more molasses to help it a little more.
It was doing well till today. This morning it was slow to get out of the Broody box with the rest. As the day progressed it just got worse. This afternoon it was really bad, so I caught it again.
The crop was over full, but this time it was so weak that it was having trouble breathing. Even if I had tried to help it I don't think it would have been able to pull out of it this time.
From what I can tell, it got impacted a while back. It was eating and just packing the little crop fuller and fuller. This stretched it and created a pendulous crop. This is when the muscles/tends are too weak to compress the crop. As a result the bird cannot empty it's crop and this leads to chronic sour crop.
I decided to euthanize the poor little one. In truth it probably would have died within a couple hours, but I felt it shouldn't have to suffer that long just to die slowly.
Matt
