Hard baseball like lump in the area of the crop

[sn0wwhite]

So it seems that my almost 2 year old SLW probably has a tumor in her crop. She looks normal, is eating fine, although she isn't running all over the yard, she's still fairly active. She stopped laying eggs when she started to molt and hasn't laid since. I gave her a bath yesterday and her vent and all other areas check out - it just feels like a tumor in her chest. She's always had a larger chest area than the others, so it didn't seem concerning before. But now I'm thinking she's probably going to die.

Any thoughts on this?

 

[olliegrow]

I had the same thing on a bantam cochin, a large golf ball size lump right on the crop, I noticed it right away but she died about 2 weeks later. I have vetrx and dewormer but didn't help, got bigger till she passed. I believe a vet might be able to remove but not a lot can be done to save her.

 

[sn0wwhite]

I think we're going on a couple of months, but I don't expect she can be saved. She's not suffering though, so I guess we'll just stay the course for now unless that changes.

 

[sn0wwhite]

Last week this chicken started laying eggs again - but with a twist. She must be laying at night or early in the morning because I'm finding them in the morning in the poop tray and the shells are a bit thin because the eggs are broken. There's quite a bit of sweet pdz in the tray so it's not that hard of a fall. Other than that the eggs are fine. I'm not eating them, of course. I scrambled the first couple to feed back, but the others were too poopy to mess with that.

Any thoughts on this new development?

 

[Gargoyle]

If she's laying at night, the egg shells don't have enough time to form, they're slipping out early. She could also either not be getting enough calcium or is having trouble absorbing the calcium.

Are you sure the hard lump is a tumor and not an impacted crop?

 

[sn0wwhite]

No, I'm not sure that it's a tumor and not an impacted crop except she has had a larger crop area than the other chickens for at least 6 months and it's very hard.

Is an impacted crop sort of squishy?

It definitely sounds like she either doesn't have enough calcium or she's not absorbing it. The other 3 chickens are fine.

 

[Gargoyle]

Impacted crops can be very hard, but if you massage them gently for several minutes they can loosen up. However, I don't know if massaging a tumor could be dangerous or not. If you see the massage is hurting her, definitely stop or change technique.