Impacted Crop?????

[Poopin]

One of my 7 mo. Old hens passed away quite suddenly. She was making a noise when she breathed which I thought was from an impacted crop. So I separated her from the rest and massaged her crop which felt squishy because I felt scratch in there. I went to get a dropper to give her some vegetable oil but she suddenly flayed around twice and died. Did I loosen the blockage and it completely blocked her air passage? I just feel horrible and want to be more prepared if this kind of thing were ever to happen again.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I'm sorry to hear about your pullet.

It would be hard to know what happened unless you investigated further by performing a necropsy or sending the carcass to your state lab.

It's possible that she aspirated material from the crop and died. It can happen.

Making a noise when breathing can be from so many things. Sometimes a bird may get a piece of food/water or mucous in the trachea and make a noise, this is called Stridor and usually will resolve on it's own over the course of several hours. Another causes is respiratory disease.
If you have another that experience similar symptoms in a short period of time, get it on video. Take care when massaging the crop that contents don't come up and go into or block the trachea, birds have no gag reflex so they can choke easily.