fully loaded crops

[darbella]

I have several 8-10 week old chickens that the feed store told me were old enough to transition from the chick starter to the crumbles. Mow the crumbles they sold me seem to have an odor of molasses or something sweet and are all very consistent in the size of the crumble. Now i notice that the birds are sitting there with these huge Arnold Swarzenager like chests sticking out. I felt them and one has a soft sqishy crop, but the other 2 have a firmer crop.
I began to massage the softer crop and gave her some pedialite/water mix and she is pooping ans this morning her crop is only slightly swollen and still soft, so I made a mash of chick starter with a little oil in it. more like a soup, and she drank it.

The other 2 have a smaller, but firmer crop and I can feel the grains of the crumbles. so I started massaging them too. Does anyone have any suggestions to help other that what I have been reading of slicing them open??? I am very sad and want to go to the feed store and fling that whole bag of food at someone.

 

[aggieterpkatie]

Is there a problem with full crops? My chickens usually have them after eating, and they're fine. Isn't that what the crop is for? To hold food until it can get mashed fine enough to digest?

 

[ruth]

They just liked their new food and pigged out. A full crop is not a bad thing and you don't need to massage it and please, don't "slice them open".

My birds all have huge crops by the end of the day - it's perfectly normal.

 

[shay20]

They should be on chick starter till they are 4 months old.

 

[max101]

One of my silkies crop looks like pamela andersson in another 10 years full and sagging. Poach is a real guts though if her crop was empty I would be worried then.

 

[darbella]

I noticed my favorite, well one of them, was just sitting with her wings droopy and her chest way out in fromt, that is how I noticed. I think a combination of the type of feed, the damp cold weather we have been having her were causing her not to be able to digest. I then noticed the other younger (4 weekers) had similar smaller but much harder crop lumps.

The first one was only given pedialite/water mix warmed up all night and today the crop was noticably smaller, so tonight I gave her water with apple cider vinegar and made a watery mash, but only a little bit of it and I will see in the morning howshe is doing. her appatite is voracious!

 

[Judy]

I suspect they are fine. Keep up with the ACV, and give a little plain live culture yogurt, to get the good flora in their guts growing, so they can digest all that feed well.

I don't know where you are (please add a general location, like a state, to your profile,) but if you're like many of us, it is awfully hot, and the chicks may simply have been a bit hot.

If the crops are empty in the morning, you're fine, they're just being little piggies.

 

[California Ducken]

Becareful massaging crops....one poster did it because she thought there was a problem.......she massaged it and the food came back up and it choked on it and passed.
A full crop is good!