Help Needed! - Symptoms Associated with Molting or Something Else?

[Wyorp Rock]

UPDATE: We're back from our trip and Helga seems ok, for now. Still molting, of course, but she's moving around and drinking and eating (or at least appears interested).

But... her crop just now, at 9:30 AM EST feels hard and lumpy! So, what I had been treating as sour crop (which I still believe it was) seemingly turned into an impacted crop! I'll stick some coconut oil in the freezer to begin treating her with (frozen will be much easier to work with!).

Does it often happen that one crop issue morphs into another like this?

Crate her tonight when it's time for roosting. No Food/Water all night, check her crop first thing before she has anything to eat/drink.

Checking at 9:30 in the morning is not going to tell you anything. She's already been eating drinking.

 

[Dreammaker]

Crate her tonight when it's time for roosting. No Food/Water all night, check her crop first thing before she has anything to eat/drink.

Checking at 9:30 in the morning is not going to tell you anything. She's already been eating drinking.

Thanks! When crating--for this or any type of issue in the future--do you put the crate in the hen house itself at night or leave it in the run overnight? To clarify, we only keep their food and water in the run. Their automatic door closes them in at dusk and reopens soon after dawn, so they go without both food and water for approximately 9-10 hours (about 8:30ish to 6:00ish) If that's plenty of time without eating or drinking, is it OK to skip the crating?

FWIW, her lumpy crop did soften a bit a little while ago, so you're right in that I didn't check at an opportune time, as I'm sure it fluctuates throughout the day. She's still got that yeasty funk to her, so a week of coconut oil/Monistat is in order.

I'll update in a few days, hopefully with good news!

 

[Wyorp Rock]

If you crate her, you want it to be inside the secured coop.

If she has no access to food/water from 8:30pm-6:00am, then yes, you should be able to gauge function then, but you will want to be out there at 6am to check her crop to see if it's empty/flat if you don't crate her.

What you are trying to do is actually see if the crop is emptying or not.
You are checking her crop during the day when she's been eating/drinking. The crop is going to feel full, maybe hard or even like it has fluid in it when she's been eating/drinking. Daytime checking is not the best way to do this.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

A heat wave will definitely stress a cold hardy breed like Flower Hens.
Additionally, it is common for combs and wattles to pale when molting. That is because they almost always go out of production during molt. Birds out of production will have shrunken and pale combs and wattles.
They also tend to feel like crap so their behavior can seem lethargic. Add in a heatwave and it is a perfect storm.

 

[Dreammaker]

A heat wave will definitely stress a cold hardy breed like Flower Hens

...

They also tend to feel like crap so their behavior can seem lethargic. Add in a heatwave and it is a perfect storm.

Thank you! I have been wondering if this has to do with her breed. It may only be one factor, but my other birds just seem to cope better (granted, they're not going through a molt and crop issues). It's funny you mention "perfect storm," because that's exactly what I said to my husband about all of this! The poor girl is just dealing with a lot at once.

On a side note: choosing breeds as a MA-based chicken-keeper is not as easy as it seems! So much of what I read when choosing emphasized cold tolerance, but we almost always have brutally hot, often very humid and uncomfortable summers. We need breeds that can handle both extremes.