Fluffy Butt Acres: Stories of our flock

[Marie2020]

You're right about it being in conflict. I don't go to the Facebook BYC group often and only to my state groups when buying or selling, but I'll see what some people "parrot" about the dangers, and it reminds me of the feed debate. People parroting claims about how dangerous it is due to the silica. They don't understand that food grade has .5% silica versus 90% for the regular, or that it's in most of the feed we buy.

I don't dust my chickens or parrots with it, though. If they had mites, I'd use permethrin powder, but in 8 years, albeit SLM (scaly leg mites) that DE can't kill, they've never had lice or mites, and they free-range with squirrels, chipmunks, and wild birds.

The funniest thing I ever saw was when some chick was posting about all the harm DE causes breathing it in, and someone found a picture of her smoking a doobie and posted it.

Some people.

 

[featherhead007]

Need advice
I may make a thread on this in the illnesses forum, but I am guessing this crowd has experience.

I am worried about Bernie.

I think I have posted pictures before of how Bernie can stuff herself to the point you cannot believe she can stand upright with the size of her crop.
This picture is from August, 2023 as an example.

View attachment 3995449

Anyway, her crop really was huge yesterday afternoon when she was torturing the pumpkin, but because she is molting heavily on her body I thought maybe it just looked more prominent without a nice covering of feathers.

She is behaving normally - not acting ill at all.

Anyway, I am a worrier, so I got up at an unholy hour this morning to examine her on the roost and was disturbed to see that her crop had not gone down overnight.

I wasn't prepared with my frozen coconut oil 'pills' so I gave her a vigorous massage which maybe helped a bit but certainly didn't empty her crop.

It feels quite firm but not rock hard - a bit like dough - and I didn't feel any fibrous lumps. Her breath does not smell sour. She delivered a slightly loose poop onto my foot during this procedure - loose but not alarmingly so.

I will prepare coconut oil pills to pop in her beak tonight after dark and will do some night time and early morning massages and will keep sniffing for signs of sour crop.

My question to all of you is whether hens are more susceptible to crop issues when they molt? I wonder if I am worrying too much, or maybe not enough.
I worry that crop issues are usually a sign of other underlying disease and Bernie may actually be seriously ill. I have had one girl who clearly just ate too much long grass - but all my other crop issues have been the start of a decline for some other reason.

Any thoughts or advice?

Answer. She’s normal, but maybe you should medicate (Valium? Maybe)

 

[Marie2020]

Need advice
I may make a thread on this in the illnesses forum, but I am guessing this crowd has experience.

I am worried about Bernie.

I think I have posted pictures before of how Bernie can stuff herself to the point you cannot believe she can stand upright with the size of her crop.
This picture is from August, 2023 as an example.

View attachment 3995449

Anyway, her crop really was huge yesterday afternoon when she was torturing the pumpkin, but because she is molting heavily on her body I thought maybe it just looked more prominent without a nice covering of feathers.

She is behaving normally - not acting ill at all.

Anyway, I am a worrier, so I got up at an unholy hour this morning to examine her on the roost and was disturbed to see that her crop had not gone down overnight.

I wasn't prepared with my frozen coconut oil 'pills' so I gave her a vigorous massage which maybe helped a bit but certainly didn't empty her crop.

It feels quite firm but not rock hard - a bit like dough - and I didn't feel any fibrous lumps. Her breath does not smell sour. She delivered a slightly loose poop onto my foot during this procedure - loose but not alarmingly so.

I will prepare coconut oil pills to pop in her beak tonight after dark and will do some night time and early morning massages and will keep sniffing for signs of sour crop.

My question to all of you is whether hens are more susceptible to crop issues when they molt? I wonder if I am worrying too much, or maybe not enough.
I worry that crop issues are usually a sign of other underlying disease and Bernie may actually be seriously ill. I have had one girl who clearly just ate too much long grass - but all my other crop issues have been the start of a decline for some other reason.

Any thoughts or advice?

Sorry I don't have any advice. I can only share what I've had experiences with.

The grass, luckily I was able to remove a long grass from princess and as you have done I gave her coconut oil to help any bacterial that might have remained in her crop.

For Tina I used the canesten marked as Clotrimazole in America , as an anti fungus treatment for the hard crop.

IMHO, as they molt, it could lower their immune systems?
As humans when we get various flu bugs and colds we too can suffer with other ailments that we to have to deal with.

Hopefully there will be someone here that will be more informed.

If it's not their time to molt then that could indicate some other condition or infestation of some kind such as fleas or mites

 

[featherhead007]

Answer. She’s normal, but maybe you should medicate (Valium? Maybe)

But that’s coming from a guy who sleeps with hens and roosters. So

 

[featherhead007]

Where where you born Marie?

 

[Ponypoor]

Sir Jaffar in memory of you buddy, my tiny hero. You will NEVER be forgotten. Please show him the respect he deserves. He was honored to be a knight in Her Majesty’s Royal Court of Aurora the Queen magnificent!View attachment 3995367

Good morning Sir Jaffar - you are mentioned often with affection- you sweet boy you.

Jaffarra is proud to be called after Sir Jaffar

 

[Ponypoor]

Coco is 2, years old

Still a youngster then

 

[Ponypoor]

Coco is molting, and I’m sure that it is painful. I try not to touch her, but she insists that she lays on my chest, and is purring loudly like a little kitty. I’m talented too, I can type on my iPhone and still cater to her!

I can have 4 chicks on my lap and work on my laptop! Heaven help me if the boss calls on Teams Meeting, and 4 little heads pop up into the screen

 

[rural mouse]

If you can’t spell it, don’t spit it!

What's the plural? Ends in -pus like octopus, for which the plural is octopi. Logically, it should be platypi......but the English language is ANYTHING but logical.

 

[ManueB]

I bet it's so lovely living where you are

Beautiful ~ very rural/isolated yet w/ many neighbors at the same time. Does your village have a general store or clinic facility for emergencies or do all rely on each other? So so lovely!

I do love living here, so much that I realise I made it sound like we own the place - not so, it belongs to my partner 's family !
It has the typical pros and cons of rural isolated places. The only thing the village has, is a one class for all primary school. Access to a doctor, a store, a bakery, a drugstore is half an hour drive of mountain road, where the emergency paramedics /firefighters are also located.

Lazy Sunday

No pony Sunday photos too lazy to run out to the paddock

But you can enjoy this feature film brought to you by ponypoor industries

"You guys don't get straw you're not special enough "

Need advice
I may make a thread on this in the illnesses forum, but I am guessing this crowd has experience.

I am worried about Bernie.

I think I have posted pictures before of how Bernie can stuff herself to the point you cannot believe she can stand upright with the size of her crop.
This picture is from August, 2023 as an example.

View attachment 3995449

Anyway, her crop really was huge yesterday afternoon when she was torturing the pumpkin, but because she is molting heavily on her body I thought maybe it just looked more prominent without a nice covering of feathers.

She is behaving normally - not acting ill at all.

Anyway, I am a worrier, so I got up at an unholy hour this morning to examine her on the roost and was disturbed to see that her crop had not gone down overnight.

I wasn't prepared with my frozen coconut oil 'pills' so I gave her a vigorous massage which maybe helped a bit but certainly didn't empty her crop.

It feels quite firm but not rock hard - a bit like dough - and I didn't feel any fibrous lumps. Her breath does not smell sour. She delivered a slightly loose poop onto my foot during this procedure - loose but not alarmingly so.

I will prepare coconut oil pills to pop in her beak tonight after dark and will do some night time and early morning massages and will keep sniffing for signs of sour crop.

My question to all of you is whether hens are more susceptible to crop issues when they molt? I wonder if I am worrying too much, or maybe not enough.
I worry that crop issues are usually a sign of other underlying disease and Bernie may actually be seriously ill. I have had one girl who clearly just ate too much long grass - but all my other crop issues have been the start of a decline for some other reason.

Any thoughts or advice?

Last year, I noticed that Léa's crop didn't empty for some time while she was molting. She also had strange poops, like she was constipated.
I searched around a bit on BYC and did find many posts where a moulting chicken had a slow crop. Sometimes it would eventually turn to a sour crop and sometimes solve itself on it's own when molting was over.
There was various type of advice given. I didn't do anything for Léa because I was afraid of stressing her out and things resolved by themselves, though she had a difficult transition coming out of the moult and back into lay.

To answer your question I believe that hens are more sensitive to crop issues when they moult.
Maybe not as relevant, I've noticed that the implant has had a drastic effect on Laure's digestion first with horrible diarrhea throughout the moult and now she has perfect beautiful poops like she never did before and like none of my other chickens . So I think hormones play a role on digestion.

Monday mug : may I know why you accuse me of digging in the mud ?