Hello! New member & concerned chicken mom

[RLFisher33]

Hello! We have two chickens - BB & Belle. They are a little over a year. I'm worried about Belle and not sure what to do. For three+ weeks now her crop is HUGE in the evenings, she no longer has feathers on it, it's bright red, and she has diarrhea/gas. In the morning, I check their coop and she doesn't seem to go poop while sleeping, but goes first thing in the AM and it's huge!
I took her to the vet, he said that she might have sand in her crop (found out sand is a no-no and took it out that very day) & he gave me some antibiotics to give to her. She seemed better on the antibiotics, but she's back to the way she was before.
She is still active, still laying, and her crop is completely empty in the mornings. So could this still be sour crop? I've purchased a crop bra that I thought about putting on her, but wanted to check with others before I did.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I just want to help her feel better. Thanks!

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Hello! We have two chickens - BB & Belle. They are a little over a year. I'm worried about Belle and not sure what to do. For three+ weeks now her crop is HUGE in the evenings, she no longer has feathers on it, it's bright red, and she has diarrhea/gas. In the morning, I check their coop and she doesn't seem to go poop while sleeping, but goes first thing in the AM and it's huge!
I took her to the vet, he said that she might have sand in her crop (found out sand is a no-no and took it out that very day) & he gave me some antibiotics to give to her. She seemed better on the antibiotics, but she's back to the way she was before.
She is still active, still laying, and her crop is completely empty in the mornings. So could this still be sour crop? I've purchased a crop bra that I thought about putting on her, but wanted to check with others before I did.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I just want to help her feel better. Thanks!

Welcome to BYC.

What type of food/treats do you feed?

Normally the crop will be full (sometime very full) in the evening when they go to bed and will be empty in the morning. So it sounds like the crop is functioning properly. She could have a bit of a pendulous crop.

With sour crop the breath would be sour/stinky and the crop would be slow to empty (or possibly not emptying much at all).

Provide her with grit (crushed granite) that you can find at the feed store, she needs that to process food.

Here is more info on crop problems.
http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2014/06/chicken-anatomy-crop-impacted-crop-sour.html
http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2016/02/pendulous-crop-in-backyard-chickens.html

 

[RLFisher33]

They get 20% in one bowl with some mealworms on top, in their other bowl, they get 20% with oyster shells and grit. Right now they get 3 blueberries in AM and 3 in PM, some cauliflower/watermelon every now and then. And they are let out of their run in the evenings (when we are home) to eat grass, weeds, bugs - whatever they can find.
They used to get 1/4 of an apple, lettuce and some yogurt in the AM, but we stopped when her stomach and crop started acting funny.
It just bothers me she has diarrhea and is gassy. She is still very active, comb is red, and is still laying every day.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

Can you post some photos of her poo?
You can take a sample to your vet and have a fecal float performed to determine whether or not she may have worms.

http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=17568.0