I suspect my first case of sour crop….

[Noreaster Egger]

One of my 6.5 year old hens is lethargic, weak, and has lost a lot of weight. Her crop is not emptying, but it feels squishy and spongey…not hard. I’ve been trying to massage her crop every hour or so, but there’s little to no draining. She is slightly pooping some liquid, but it’s mostly urates. She drank a little water this morning, but that doesn’t seem to be draining much either. I feel like I’m picking up the sour, fermented smell from her breath, but it’s tough to tell since I’ve been stuffed up myself.

I have miconazole-7 2% cream to try with her, but does the crop need to be emptied before dosing her? I feel like she’s pushing death in the next few days if I don’t try something. Does the M-7 have a chance of helping her empty her crop? I guess I’m asking if the yeast can cause the blockage or if it’s something else causing the blockage and the yeast is thriving and fermenting in the full crop.

Thanks!

edit…a little shameless call to @azygous as that’s whose article I’ve been referencing.

 

[azygous]

Go ahead. Be shameless. The way to see if this hen is suffering from simple crop yeast or if the yeasty crop is being triggered by a more serious underlying condition is to go ahead and start giving the miconazole.

No, it's not necessary to empty the crop to treat her. In fact, the fluid will just come back anyway. You cannot overdose her. Give her a mouthful of the cream now, and do it again in about three hours. Then another dose at bedtime. No need to massage sour crop unless the crop is obviously impacted with solid, lumpy material. In that case, I treat intensely for an impacted crop before worrying about tackling the yeast.

By tomorrow morning, you should be able to tell if you're dealing with simple sour crop or impacted crop when you check her crop before she has access to food and water. If she has an underlying condition, her crop will remain stubbornly full in spite of the miconazole.

There is no need to take her away from her flock to treat her.

 

[Noreaster Egger]

Go ahead. Be shameless. The way to see if this hen is suffering from simple crop yeast or if the yeasty crop is being triggered by a more serious underlying condition is to go ahead and start giving the miconazole.

No, it's not necessary to empty the crop to treat her. In fact, the fluid will just come back anyway. You cannot overdose her. Give her a mouthful of the cream now, and do it again in about three hours. Then another dose at bedtime. No need to massage sour crop unless the crop is obviously impacted with solid, lumpy material. In that case, I treat intensely for an impacted crop before worrying about tackling the yeast.

By tomorrow morning, you should be able to tell if you're dealing with simple sour crop or impacted crop when you check her crop before she has access to food and water. If she has an underlying condition, her crop will remain stubbornly full in spite of the miconazole.

There is no need to take her away from her flock to treat her.

I definitely don’t feel any material in there…just sponginess or liquid.

My wife and I just gave her a dose and her breath reeked. So I’m confident of sour crop, but like you said I’m not sure if there’s another underlying problem.

She had some roundworms this summer so we dewormed them with Aquasol for 5 days. That perked her up for a little while. Then we saw her slowing down again and when I analyzed her I noticed she had fly strike starting below her vent. They were starting to burrow in, but I was able to pick off/out all of the maggots and we cleaned her off with in the tub with the shower head really well. She perked up again for a month, but began slowing down again this past week and when I checked her vent area again she had a case of northern fowl mites. So I dusted her vent area and under her wings with permethrin a few days ago to treat for that. Then I noticed the crop and smell the other night. So she has been through a lot. I’m worried something bigger is wrong since these opportunistic ailments seem to keep popping up.

We’re very clean here…all poop is cleaned out of the run daily, they have multiple areas to dust bathe, access to grit and oyster shell, and they get free ranging time in the evening.

So the 3 M7 doses today should help empty the crop by morning if that’s the only cause? I’m trying to understand how the candida albicans works inside of the bird. Does it cause inflammation and narrowing where the crop empties into the proventriculus and gizzard essentially blocking it off or is it usually a full digestive system problem? Like I said, I’ve seen her excreting liquidy urates so at least some water is getting through the system. She has drank a little on her own today, but no attempt to eat. I’m trying to be hopeful, but she feels like feathers and bones right now.

 

[azygous]

Due to her age, a reproductive infection or tumors can interfere with digestion and crop movement. We need to keep that in mind, but it's too early to tell.

You should see improvement in 24 hours, and each day, the crop should be less full of fluid. Try to keep a positive attitude until the seven day treatment is finished. At that point we'll assess things and take it from there.

Offer her food that doesn't contain sugar. Dry chicken crumbles, boiled egg, unsweeted applesauce, to keep her strength up. She will eat what she needs. Also, supply grit so she can take what she needs for digestion, and a steady supply of fresh plain water.

 

[Noreaster Egger]

I didn’t see her eat all day, but she did have a couple sips of water. I got the M7 in her 3x. She came out to free range with everyone else this evening, but she was slow walking. After exiting she did a small, wet cecal poop. I went to check on her at one point and she was pulling earthworms out of the ground to eat. She’s been in that area frequently the last couple of weeks so I wonder if she’s eating too many worms and getting a large load of roundworms? I set her on the roost since she’s too weak to fly up and her crop showed no real improvement. I’ll update in the morning.

 

[Noreaster Egger]

No real improvement this morning although she did pass some poop that is concerning. It’s mostly runny urates with some yellow bits in it which makes me worried she has a reproductive disease like egg peritonitis. She has had eggs break in her many times before, she gets sick, and then improves and is back to her old self. But this feels different. Also the whole flock has been molting so no one should be gearing up egg production yet either.

The crop may have come down a little, but not much. I’m not sure what a sour crop treated poop should look like, but it really seems to reek like yeast. Anyway here it is…

When I set her into the run she stayed in front of the water and drank occasionally for 5 minutes straight. Should I continue with the M7? Maybe try giving her some coconut oil or yogurt? Maybe some docusate sodium?

 

[azygous]

What does her crop feel like? What does it feel like it has inside? Any hard lumps or stringy material that feels like grass or shavings?

Is the poop smell acrid? That means biting, sharp, foul and unpleasant. The mucous stringy thing in the poop, is it soft like mucous or firm like cheese?

Resist the urge to throw everything in your arsenal at this. There's a possibility of a reproductive infection. There's also the chance she's got a blockage in the oviduct. To figure this out, we need to approach it with one thing at a time. You may give her a calcium tablet right now. That can help expel anything blocking the oviduct. It won't hurt anything to do this. Pop the pill directly into her beak.

I'm very concerned about her weakness. Have you tried offering her soft boiled egg or unsweetened applesauce? Boiled rice? She's losing strength, and we could lose her if she doesn't get nourishment soon. Do you have Poultry Nutri-drench on hand? Baby vitamins? Poultry vitamins?

 

[Noreaster Egger]

What does her crop feel like? What does it feel like it has inside? Any hard lumps or stringy material that feels like grass or shavings?

Is the poop smell acrid? That means biting, sharp, foul and unpleasant. The mucous stringy thing in the poop, is it soft like mucous or firm like cheese?

Resist the urge to throw everything in your arsenal at this. There's a possibility of a reproductive infection. There's also the chance she's got a blockage in the oviduct. To figure this out, we need to approach it with one thing at a time. You may give her a calcium tablet right now. That can help expel anything blocking the oviduct. It won't hurt anything to do this. Pop the pill directly into her beak.

I'm very concerned about her weakness. Have you tried offering her soft boiled egg or unsweetened applesauce? Boiled rice? She's losing strength, and we could lose her if she doesn't get nourishment soon. Do you have Poultry Nutri-drench on hand? Baby vitamins? Poultry vitamins?

I can’t feel anything solid in her crop. Just liquid and squishiness. When I had massaged it it felt like it may have been going down a bit, but it just expands back out. I wouldn’t say it’s extra large and bulging or anything…just not emptying. Of course she isn’t eating much either…and nothing extremely solid.

I have some of those sav-a-chick probiotic and electrolyte packets in hand that I could mix in the water.

I offer the flock regular NCO corn/soy free pellets and a wet mash version as well. Last night she took a couple bites of the mash before bed like she usually does…but not as much as she typically consumes.

I agree about not wanting to throw everything at her right now. Sometimes it seems like Ihave better luck when I let the bird handle it on her own. When I start getting into antibiotics and other things I tend to lose them quickly (probably a correlation and not causation deal there…but still…)

So calcium and maybe some rice? We have one girl still laying about 5x per week so I could soft boil one for her as well. She’d probably eat the runny yolk. Keep going with the yeast treatment?

I’ll get out there in a few and get a good smell of the poop again. I want to send this now before I risk losing everything I’ve already typed.

 

[Noreaster Egger]

I can’t really notice a smell with it now. I’m mostly picking up the scent of the sweet pdz. The yellow bits were semi solid…more like the consistency of undercooked scrambled eggs versus mucous.

 

[Noreaster Egger]

She ate a little bit of the soft yolk and rice. I held her and gave her a good crop massage and she gave a little burp. I’ve been trying to knead bottom-up while occasionally holding her crop up in case the muscles around it are getting too weak to do it herself. It felt like it may have gone down a little, but it’s hard to tell. I gave her another dose of M7 as well. can’t find my Ca, but I’m still looking…haven’t used that in years.