- Jan 9, 2015
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Hi - I am based in Brittany France and am very new to chicken keeping! I have 3 pekin bantams, two silkies, two Belgian Bearded Bantams, a cochin, a brahma cockerel, 2 sussex and a copper maran. At the moment I think one of my bantams is a tad unwell. She is wanting food and looking sprightly but when she stops running around the run she stops and shuts her eyes for a while. I think it may be something to do with her crop? It felt quite bulbous the other day so I gave her olive oil and massaged on a few occasions. The next day the hardness seemed to have gone but felt a bit squishy (difficult to describe) - I am not sure if she has a blockage the other pekins crops feel different to hers - have given her a bit of pineapple but wondered if it could be something else. They have a large outdoor space for the day and they go back into their coop to perch at sunset. They are fed on a complete chicken food, oyster shell and grit and scraps - i.e. pumpkin, cucumber, toms, lettuce, cabbage etc. As I say she is still interested in eating - I do think she has lost weight though - she spent a good couple of months brooding in the summer and started losing weight then. Any tips would be really appreciated!
The best time to check crops is when you first let them out in a morning. Their crops should be empty at this point if they still feel full then there is a problem. At the end of the day they should be quite full and often feel hard and full often to the point that you can see them protruding. Hopefully if you check on an evening and then the morning you should see a difference. Posting in the emergencies injuries disease section with symptoms should also help you here is the link 
