Hi all,
I was going to post about my month-old RIR roo who has a hard golf-ball sized crop right now. Now I realize that most of my chicks have this problem! His just shows up more because he's less feathered out than the girls.
Here's the situation: really big crops (some quite hard, like the roo's, some soft), that are mostly sticking out on the right side of the birds. (Noticeably lopsided... not in the middle.) I guess they're the size of walnuts, which is quite big on the little birds.
All the chicks are active and healthy-looking--racing around the brooder--and they seem very hungry, pecking at the chick feed and coming over to my hand like they expect me to feed them.
Care I've given them: they shouldn't be too cold, they're in giant plastic tubs in the garage, and there are fifteen chicks per tub so they can keep each other warm. They're eating chick starter, and I've been giving them little treats of cooked winter squash, cooked summer squash, sweet corn, and a bit of tomato. They didn't have grit but I put a box of dirt/stones in the brooder today.
Any clues? Do they have impacted crops? Am I going to have to flush 20 little chick crops (I did do some research on other threads)? What's a first step to take? (Or a second step -- I just removed food to see if the crops would go down...) I'm scared for my little ones, and I already lost chicks to a fox, so I really don't want to lose any more : (
Thanks for any help!!
Lynda
I was going to post about my month-old RIR roo who has a hard golf-ball sized crop right now. Now I realize that most of my chicks have this problem! His just shows up more because he's less feathered out than the girls.
Here's the situation: really big crops (some quite hard, like the roo's, some soft), that are mostly sticking out on the right side of the birds. (Noticeably lopsided... not in the middle.) I guess they're the size of walnuts, which is quite big on the little birds.
All the chicks are active and healthy-looking--racing around the brooder--and they seem very hungry, pecking at the chick feed and coming over to my hand like they expect me to feed them.
Care I've given them: they shouldn't be too cold, they're in giant plastic tubs in the garage, and there are fifteen chicks per tub so they can keep each other warm. They're eating chick starter, and I've been giving them little treats of cooked winter squash, cooked summer squash, sweet corn, and a bit of tomato. They didn't have grit but I put a box of dirt/stones in the brooder today.
Any clues? Do they have impacted crops? Am I going to have to flush 20 little chick crops (I did do some research on other threads)? What's a first step to take? (Or a second step -- I just removed food to see if the crops would go down...) I'm scared for my little ones, and I already lost chicks to a fox, so I really don't want to lose any more : (
Thanks for any help!!
Lynda
