Medication for sour crop?

[marlene]

I am treating my pullet for a sour crop, this is the 3rd time now. I just can't seem to shift it, as soon as she is better and i let her out to freerange, within a couple of days it returns.
I have been treating her with yogurt and garlic and acv, then slowly introduce soft food in small amount, gradually building the amount up every day.
This 3rd time, i withheld food for 24 hours then she got yougurt with fresh garlic mixed in, 3rd day (today) she got yogurt with a small amount of oats mixed in with the yogurt.
I am now thinking that after 3 attempts at clearing her, maybe i need to concider medication to clear it once and for all.
Does anyone know what medication i should give? Also any suggestions on natural remedies appreciated. All suggestions and ideas welcome.

 

[TwoCrows]

Raw, unfiltered apple cider vinegar will work wonders for a sour crop. Basically, a sour crop is because the good bacteria is out of whack in the crop. Many things can cause this, from antibiotics, having a yeast infection, fungal infection, something the chicken ate, or something internally wrong with the chicken.

But more times than not, it comes from an imbalance of these good bacterias. Yeasts and fungus grow in these environments in the crop, in a sweet environment. Apple cider vinegar lowers this ph of the crop to an acid environment and does not allow these yeasts and fungus's to reproduce.

Sour crop is difficult to treat and it does not disappear rather quickly. So you must keep up with it. What I suggest you do is put 3 tablespoons of this raw ACV to one gallon of water. Give it to all your chickens. It will do their systems good too. I offer ACV one a week for good health of my chickens. Change the water everyday and keep adding the ACV for 2 weeks.

If she is uncomfortable and is doing the "neck squiggle" you might want to vomit her to get all that toxic stuff out of her crop. Hold her like a football, and lean her forward, never backwards. With the other hand, massage her crop till the gunk comes out her beak. ONLY hold her like this for no more than 10 secs so she can breathe. Do it one more time to get the rest of it out. You won't get it all, but the worst of the toxic stuff will come out and she will feel better. Do this twice a day or more if she needs it.

Keep offering her yogurt, hard boiled eggs and soft foods. Wet her feed down. Don't offer any hard foods like raw veggies, seeds and such. You want everything to move as fast thru her system as it can, as a soured crop is extremely slow to begin with and you don't want to slow it further.

And, if she appears cold in the mornings, you might want to consider keeping her under a heat lamp at night. Cold birds do not move their crops or heal from illness.

Do all this stuff for a few weeks. It takes a while to get her back on track. I had a girl with sour crop for 2 straight months. But she completely recovered and I use the ACV once a week to prevent any sweet crops in the flock.

Good luck with your baby!

 

[marlene]

Raw, unfiltered apple cider vinegar will work wonders for a sour crop. Basically, a sour crop is because the good bacteria is out of whack in the crop. Many things can cause this, from antibiotics, having a yeast infection, fungal infection, something the chicken ate, or something internally wrong with the chicken.

But more times than not, it comes from an imbalance of these good bacterias. Yeasts and fungus grow in these environments in the crop, in a sweet environment. Apple cider vinegar lowers this ph of the crop to an acid environment and does not allow these yeasts and fungus's to reproduce.

Sour crop is difficult to treat and it does not disappear rather quickly. So you must keep up with it. What I suggest you do is put 3 tablespoons of this raw ACV to one gallon of water. Give it to all your chickens. It will do their systems good too. I offer ACV one a week for good health of my chickens. Change the water everyday and keep adding the ACV for 2 weeks.

If she is uncomfortable and is doing the "neck squiggle" you might want to vomit her to get all that toxic stuff out of her crop. Hold her like a football, and lean her forward, never backwards. With the other hand, massage her crop till the gunk comes out her beak. ONLY hold her like this for no more than 10 secs so she can breathe. Do it one more time to get the rest of it out. You won't get it all, but the worst of the toxic stuff will come out and she will feel better. Do this twice a day or more if she needs it.

Keep offering her yogurt, hard boiled eggs and soft foods. Wet her feed down. Don't offer any hard foods like raw veggies, seeds and such. You want everything to move as fast thru her system as it can, as a soured crop is extremely slow to begin with and you don't want to slow it further.

And, if she appears cold in the mornings, you might want to consider keeping her under a heat lamp at night. Cold birds do not move their crops or heal from illness.

Do all this stuff for a few weeks. It takes a while to get her back on track. I had a girl with sour crop for 2 straight months. But she completely recovered and I use the ACV once a week to prevent any sweet crops in the flock.

Good luck with your baby!

Thank you for the advice.
I have been giving her acv every day, i always put acv in the chickens water.
I have been vomiting her, on days when her crop is really big, i have done it several times in one day.
The problem is that as soon as i let her out of the hospital coop, within a few days her sour crop is back, so i'm either not not clearing her crop properly or she has a problem with her crop.
Once i feel her crop back to normal, i keep her in the hospital for another 3-4 days, checking her every day, only then do i let her freerange and eat her normal layers pellets.
Because it keeps re-occuring, i am thinking i need medicine
, as i have done what i believe, every thing possible for her but seem to be getting no where.

 

[TwoCrows]

I had said in my last post about how my girl had sour crop for 2 months. I came to the conclusion that her feed was making her ill. I changed out her feed and with in 24 hours she made a huge recovery. So as a last ditch effort, you could try changing feeds. It saved my girls life, as she was growing very weary of this sour crop.

You could always try the vet. They have Nystatin, which is an excellent anti fungal and yeast medicine. Also, and please don't think this is freaky, but vaginal medicine will help also. A sour crop is a yeast infection, just as women get. The vet ok'd me to use it when my girl was not healing....Clortrimazole, 1 or 2%. Fill a syringe with about a 3/4 teaspoon or so of it, give it 2 times a day. I know it sounds nasty, but it is an anti fungal and anti yeast and it did wonders on my girl when she wasn't eating her food. It will not make her sick.

I am sorry to hear about your girl. I sure hope your girl heals up soon.

 

[marlene]

I had said in my last post about how my girl had sour crop for 2 months. I came to the conclusion that her feed was making her ill. I changed out her feed and with in 24 hours she made a huge recovery. So as a last ditch effort, you could try changing feeds. It saved my girls life, as she was growing very weary of this sour crop.

You could always try the vet. They have Nystatin, which is an excellent anti fungal and yeast medicine. Also, and please don't think this is freaky, but vaginal medicine will help also. A sour crop is a yeast infection, just as women get. The vet ok'd me to use it when my girl was not healing....Clortrimazole, 1 or 2%. Fill a syringe with about a 3/4 teaspoon or so of it, give it 2 times a day. I know it sounds nasty, but it is an anti fungal and anti yeast and it did wonders on my girl when she wasn't eating her food. It will not make her sick.

I am sorry to hear about your girl. I sure hope your girl heals up soon.

Thanks again for your help.
Funnily enough i bought a different brand of layers pellets today, as my ussual supplier had run out so i had to go some where else for it and it's a different make.
No i don't think it's freaky the suggestion for the thrush cream, as only today i read on the net the same thing you've just said about using it for sour crop.
My daughter in law is coming over tomorrow with some medicine for me to give my pullet, she was given it for her son, to treat thrush in the mouth. Don't know till tomorrow what it is, how much should i give a chicken?

 

[TwoCrows]

I would start with about a teaspoon full 2 times a day and see if anything changes. And any thrush medication should definitely do the trick. Can't hurt either. Remember to give it time. Even my girl that I got back on track with a new feed had crop issues for a week or so later, however I could tell 24 hours later she was healing.

Good luck with your baby.

Oh, and use a syringe to get it down her throat. Then you know she got the full dosage.

 

[marlene]

Thank you, i will update in a few days time as to how she is doing.

 

[lucky123]

Thanks twocrowranch, some of the best advice I've read on sour crop and how to treat it.

 

[ruffles]

Beentreating a hen with sour crop for four days with apple cider unfiltered unpasturized water, but, she is not eating.

Help and suggetions

 

[TwoCrows]

One of the more common reasons a bird gets a sour crop is from eating grass and stiff vegetation. Grass gets wound around and around into a ball and is very hard to break down. Same with stiff vegetation. The longer it takes for the gizzard to grind this stuff down, the longer food sits in the crop growing bacteria.

So the first thing you need to do is not free range her at all for a few days. If you have to cage her, do so. Only allow her damp layer feed. Nothing hard like seeds, veggies or anything sweet. Just layer feed. If her crop seems overly full, you will need to vomit her. Hold her like a football in one arm and with the other hand, support her at the crop. Lean your self forward with the bird, beak down and massage the crop to see if gunk will come out. ONLY hold her like this for 5 or 6 seconds so she can breath. Lean her up and try again if you got anything out the first time. That stuff is poison and will not move thru the GI tract. So it is important to get it out of the crop.

Use 2 or 3 tablespoons of ACV to one gallon of water. You CAN offer up yogurt or hard boiled eggs coated in yogurt to help the good bacteria grow. Even some probiotics put in the feed will help. Make new feed each day so the damp feed does not spoil.

Keep this up for several days until she turns the corner. NO free ranging.