Hen only drinks water, swollen crop, normal breath and behavior

[Marge R.]

Hello!

I am new to the community, however I've been enjoying advice from BackYard Chickens for quite some time. About 5 days ago my 2 year old hen (White Ameraucana) slowed her food intake and has been drinking excessive amounts of water for 5-15 minutes at a time. For the past 2 days she has only drank water. Her breath is normal, crop is enlarged, squishy, and she started throwing up water today. At first I attributed this behavior to the weather, average temperatures hovering around 100F with humidity 80% and above. Heat index has been over 100 for roughly 10 days. She is still behaving normally outside of all this water drinking. I'm just very concerned as the behavior has only increased and now she is throwing up. None of my other birds are displaying this behavior. Any advice would be helpful and beyond appreciated!! Thank you!

 

[Kiki]

Welcome to BYC.
Sounds like she is having a crop issue.
Please read through this:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...d-sour-crops-prevention-and-treatments.67194/

 

[Marge R.]

Welcome to BYC.
Sounds like she is having a crop issue.
Please read through this:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...d-sour-crops-prevention-and-treatments.67194/

Thank you! Seems like she has slow crop. I'll keep an eye on her and be sure to check her crop in the morning.

 

[Kiki]

Your welcome.

 

[OwO]

One of my chickens had this, I *think* I helped fix it by giving her 1tsp epsom salt to 2tbsp water twice a day, which she just drank as if it were normal water, as well as massaging her crop a little. The next morning she didn't have it anymore, although I am honestly not sure if what I did is the reason for that.

 

[Marge R.]

Does anyone have advice on the most successful way to give chickens medication by beak? Mine is quite a fighter and I've had no success thus far.

 

[OwO]

What type of medication? When one of my chickens required antibiotics (Linco-Spectin, which was meant to be put in her water) my vet recommended that I get a small amount of it on the tip of a knife (he said around 2mm in from the end of the knife) and put it on a very tasty food that they would really want to eat so they get all of it at once. I ended up putting it on wet cat food which she ate without much issue despite not wanting to eat anything else. If your chicken really likes mealworms or something you could coat a mealworm in olive oil maybe, then put a bit of the powder medication on that mealworm (assuming it is powder medication).

 

[sbhkma]

Watermelon works too. Mine love watermelon.