Finally cured my hen's pendulous crop, some tips

[Apags18]

First off, I do not believe there is one surefire way to cure pendulous crop because it seems like it can be caused by a variety of issues, such as blockages, worms, genetics, etc. There may not just be one way to solve your issue and I would attempt multiple treatments if you're not sure what's going on.

I spent way too long researching and trying to figure out how to solve my hen's problem, she had been suffering from pendulous crop for nearly two months straight and had reoccurring sour crop due to how swollen it was. After knowing that I was coming up on my third sour crop issue and I needed to try something different, I switched up my treatment.

• Let your hen eat with the other chickens, my hen would get depressed very easily when isolated [even briefly] and will start refusing food when bored. Letting her be a normal chicken was the only way I could get her to keep trying to put weight on, they seem to lose weight very rapidly once the crop is having issues which can get dangerous fast if they get too weak to move.
• I removed my hen's crop bra, against the advice of many chicken owners with the same issue. The issue was my hen's crop was so big that the bra wasn't really holding it at all, it would quickly slip under eventually once my hen moved around no matter how well I attempted to fit it. I decided it was doing nothing after seeing some veterinarians mention online that it was kind of useless, and carried some risks with the air sacs being so close to the crop. Another problem with crop bras is that my hen could not properly maintain her feathers and was just looking absolutely terrible/uncomfortable, she was also distracted by the bra a lot and wasted time picking at it rather than doing normal chicken stuff.
• I started massaging my hen's crop for 15-20 minutes every few hours, I noticed my hen was getting more food down if I massaged her so I thought doing it routinely would at least get her weight back up while I try to figure out other treatments. You can observe how well your hen is digesting by isolating her temporarily and checking how how big and how often she's pooping.
• During this massage process, really feel inside the crop as much as you can. My hen had a lot of grit resting on the bottom of her crop, I could feel little pebbles moving around towards the bottom when I massaged her. This is not a good sign, all that grit is supposed to be in the gizzard and not resting in the crop. Grit is useless in the crop.
• I would make an effort push larger objects in the crop (such as grit) into the gizzard, the gizzard is located directly behind the crop towards the bottom (which is why the bra is supposed to lift the crop up to drain into the gizzard.) You can feel a small hole towards the back of the crop, push large things towards that during the massage. I find that pushed the crop up in a swishing motion, and then applying pressure seemed to drain it the fastest.
• After repeating these intense massages for a little under a week, the little grit pile was finally gone and her crop started draining normally again.
• My hen's crop is still stretched out to some extent, so be wary of issues reoccurring now that the crop has been permanently damaged.

I really thought this hen was a lost cause after two months straight of crop issues daily, and two cases of sour crop in that time too. I didn't want to give up unless she passed on her own and I was not expecting intensive routine massages to work. I was only looking to use the massages as a temporary band-aid while I think of new treatments.

If you need to rapidly treat sour crop btw, I used monistat 2%. I fed her about an inch of monistat in the morning and at night for a week each time she had sour crop. Make sure you keep up treatment for about a week even if you think it's gone, yeast is very resilient and will rapidly grow again if too much is left behind to prosper in the crop.

Give it a shot if you feel like nothing else is working!

I’m so happy I found this! Back in early Dec I realized one of my hens had sour crop and possibly pendulous crop. I started her on monistat and tried massaging her crop, but after a week or two I noticed it hadn’t worked. So I found some medistatin online and ordered that, figured out the dosage and started giving her that. But after another week or two, nothing had seemed to work. I did finally find a vet near us who sees chickens. I’ve been there twice in the past two weeks and both times she was able to flush out her crop and get her to throw up what was left. First time she very much had sour crop and it was very smelly with tons of grit. This second time the sour smell was gone and she looked much better but she still had a ton of grit in her crop as well as grass and some corn from her flock block. At this point it has been at least two months that she’s had this and I’m worried she’s stuck with pendulous crop. She has never once acted sick, still eating and drinks and poops fine and is still laying eggs. I’ve tried putting her in a crop bra but she flails around and acts like she’s dying. I’ve tried it multiple times with no success.

Your story sounded just like mine so I’m going to continue with the crop massages to help get the grit out of her crop. She’s very much still acting herself and really fights me when I try to do anything with her so I’m glad she’s still herself. My worry is that this will never go back down and I will always have to treat it. The chickens are technically my parents and I go over and care for them when I’m at their house. I travel a lot for work and can’t be around all the time. When I’m not there my parents won’t fight her to pick her up and massage the crop so it will probably take longer to heal.

But thank you for sharing! This gives me some hope!

 

[akitafriendakita]

I’m so happy I found this! Back in early Dec I realized one of my hens had sour crop and possibly pendulous crop. I started her on monistat and tried massaging her crop, but after a week or two I noticed it hadn’t worked. So I found some medistatin online and ordered that, figured out the dosage and started giving her that. But after another week or two, nothing had seemed to work. I did finally find a vet near us who sees chickens. I’ve been there twice in the past two weeks and both times she was able to flush out her crop and get her to throw up what was left. First time she very much had sour crop and it was very smelly with tons of grit. This second time the sour smell was gone and she looked much better but she still had a ton of grit in her crop as well as grass and some corn from her flock block. At this point it has been at least two months that she’s had this and I’m worried she’s stuck with pendulous crop. She has never once acted sick, still eating and drinks and poops fine and is still laying eggs. I’ve tried putting her in a crop bra but she flails around and acts like she’s dying. I’ve tried it multiple times with no success.

Your story sounded just like mine so I’m going to continue with the crop massages to help get the grit out of her crop. She’s very much still acting herself and really fights me when I try to do anything with her so I’m glad she’s still herself. My worry is that this will never go back down and I will always have to treat it. The chickens are technically my parents and I go over and care for them when I’m at their house. I travel a lot for work and can’t be around all the time. When I’m not there my parents won’t fight her to pick her up and massage the crop so it will probably take longer to heal.

But thank you for sharing! This gives me some hope!

She hasn't had issues since! Still has a big crop but it drains properly now and her weight went back to normal.

At the time I was treating her, I would feed her off-brand monistat once per day. Like an inch of it or so just to keep sour crop away because her crop was so full constantly.

 

[Apags18]

She hasn't had issues since! Still has a big crop but it drains properly now and her weight went back to normal.

At the time I was treating her, I would feed her off-brand monistat once per day. Like an inch of it or so just to keep sour crop away because her crop was so full constantly.

How long did it take to treat her? I found my hen with a huge crop either end of Nov or beginning of Dec, so it’s been two months that I’ve been treating her. I haven’t used the monistat the whole time though. I was able to get my hands on some medistatin powder and then I have taken her to the vet, who prescribed nystatin. The vet was able to flush out everything and get her to vomit the rest, but it has only worked temporarily and as soon as she goes back to eating and deinking, her crop is huge again. So I appreciate the vet’s help and I’m glad I found a vet who sees chickens, but I can’t afford to keep taking her when she acts completely normal and is pooping well and she’s been laying eggs regularly this whole time too.

It worries me that because it’s now been two months, but it won’t get better. I also don’t want her to live off monistat and statins forever trying to cure this. I really appreciate you sharing what you have done. I’m going to try and massage her crop more often.

Darn hen will NOT wear a crop bra though. lol She makes the biggest fuss and I’ve tried multiple times and she just looks as if she’s trying to kill herself with it . I think she’s been through enough stress the past two months with me taking her to the vet and picking her up to medicate her. So not trying to overwhelm her anymore.

 

[akitafriendakita]

How long did it take to treat her? I found my hen with a huge crop either end of Nov or beginning of Dec, so it’s been two months that I’ve been treating her. I haven’t used the monistat the whole time though. I was able to get my hands on some medistatin powder and then I have taken her to the vet, who prescribed nystatin. The vet was able to flush out everything and get her to vomit the rest, but it has only worked temporarily and as soon as she goes back to eating and deinking, her crop is huge again. So I appreciate the vet’s help and I’m glad I found a vet who sees chickens, but I can’t afford to keep taking her when she acts completely normal and is pooping well and she’s been laying eggs regularly this whole time too.

It worries me that because it’s now been two months, but it won’t get better. I also don’t want her to live off monistat and statins forever trying to cure this. I really appreciate you sharing what you have done. I’m going to try and massage her crop more often.

Darn hen will NOT wear a crop bra though. lol She makes the biggest fuss and I’ve tried multiple times and she just looks as if she’s trying to kill herself with it . I think she’s been through enough stress the past two months with me taking her to the vet and picking her up to medicate her. So not trying to overwhelm her anymore.

It took a couple months for me when I discovered the issue (because I tried a lot of different things to fix it,) but a couple weeks once I started doing frequent massages. You can try feeding her lots of oil too, coconut oil is good. It will hopefully dislodge whatever is causing the minor blockage.

The massages shouldn't overwhelm her too much since you're just helping her digest a little faster and they don't seem to mind having their crop touched as much as other areas. You want to push the crop up with your hand, then massage the contents down towards the little tube that is connecting it to the gizzard and just repeat that. You can push on it pretty hard in my experience to try to force it in, just stop if she starts spitting up though and give her a break.

I would also deworm her if you haven't done it lately because worms are a pretty common cause of blockages.