Gravel in croup???

[tommboy1973]

Hi everyone.
One of my pullets has a large croup that feels like it is full of small pebbles/gravel. I searched for impacted/sour croup but have not seen any mention of a gravely feeling. It is very heavy. She seems well otherwise and is still trying to eat. I withheld food for 24 hours and still the same. Does anyone have any ides why gravel??? Do some birds just fill up on dirt/rocks instead of food. They go out to free range but not much more than dirt out here in the desert right now. The other 13 are fine.

 

[ninjascrub69]

Quote:
It probably is gravel, chickens need it to help digest food.

 

[chickenlover205]

chickens will eat small rocks to grind up some of the food in their crop it helps with digesting and makes a happy chicken. in a day she will have pooped them all out.

 

[tommboy1973]

I know that it is normal for them to eat gravel but her crop is huge, maybe the size of a softball or larger and hasn't gone down in 36 hours without food. It feels packed full of gravel, definitely not normal. The other chickens crops are nowhere near as large even when full at end of day. I have tried massaging and mineral oil but I think I'm going to have to put her out of her misery tomorrow, she is pretty uncomfortable, she keeps scratching at it with her foot and she won't jump down off of perch.

 

[tommboy1973]

She also makes gagging motions and I am afraid to feed her.

 

[chickengal]

Have you wormed them lately. I think that happend to my chicken after I wormed it ...I believe it was the dead worms that got stuck in its crop.

 

[tommboy1973]

No I haven't wormed them. It doesn't feel like worms tho.

 

[tommboy1973]

UPDATE: My hubby put her down today. I opened up her crop after and it was packed full of dirt and rocks. I went around feeling all the other chickens crops and they felt soft. I still wonder why she ate dirt and rocks, maybe she didn't like the Layena pellets. I had switched to pellets after last bag of crumbles. Just to be safe I switched back to crumbles yesterday since I never had a problem when feeding those. If anyone else ever had this happen please let me know. Thanks.