Need help diagnosing. Sour crop?

[buckabucka]

Main symptoms:
-excessive thirst
-throwing up water
-slight odor

More detailed information below:

My lavender Ameraucana is almost 3 years old. She had quit laying eggs for the winter. Two days ago she was sitting, yesterday we got an egg, although there is no way of knowing for certain that it was hers, but she has appeared active and healthy until now.

Yesterday afternoon, I noticed she was drinking a lot of water and her entire head was soaked, even on top. She is under shelter all day, so I thought this was odd.

This morning, her head was still soaked and she was shaking her head occasionally. It is below freezing, so I decided to bring her in and dry her off. While observing her in the coop, I noticed she was still drinking a lot, and sometimes water would drool out of her beak.

When I picked her up, water started pouring out of her beak. She threw up water repeatedly as I carried her out. At first, she was wheezing, but I think she got a little water in her windpipe. I don't handle my birds often, so I'm sure she was alarmed.

When I dried her head with the hair dryer, I did notice a slight odor. I'm not even sure where the crop is (on the right, front?), but I would say that area feels squishy. I got her to eat a little yogurt, bread soaked in olive oil and wine (I read that on here somewhere), flock raiser, and of course she likes water. I put a little Avia charge in it.

Does this sound like sour crop? Can it clear up with yogurt or kefir, or do I need to get monistat or some other treatment? Is sour crop a medical emergency? We're in the middle of a big snowstorm, so it would be easiest to pick up treatment tomorrow.

I appreciate any advice!

 

[realsis]

yes it does sound like sour crop and yes its a medical issue. please read on sour crop. you will need to If you suspect sour crop, isolating your chicken in a warm,quiet area, massaging the crop in the direction of the head trying to induce vomiting, encouraging yogurt, olive oil and water with apple cider vinegar is a great way to start. a visit to the vet for an antifungal might be required or you can try neo sol its a antibacterial in the water. please please be careful when vomiting her she can asperate and die. i wish you luck and hope she does better please keep us posted

 

[realsis]

How to Recognise Sour Crop

It is easy to identify sour crop. The symptoms are as follows:

crop fails to empty.
chicken has awful bad breath.
crop seems filled with water and has a balloon-like feel.
an affected bird may jerk its head around, trying to dislodge a blockage.
the crop is abnormally large and does not fluctuate in size.
A chicken that has suffered from sour crop for a while will also display the following symptoms:

significant weight loss.
disengagement from social activity with the rest of the flock.
little if any interest in eating or drinking.
droopy tail.
unusually depressed responses to external stimuli.
How to Make Sour Crop go Away

Isolate the chicken. Separating the bird with sour crop from its flock provides it with the space needed for a quiet and stress-free recovery.
Don’t feed solid food. No layers’ pellets, no corn, no greens. These will only further exacerbate the problem.
Try soft food. Cold mashed potatoes (no butter or salt) and plain boiled rice are good choices. Such foods stand a chance of getting past any blockage, and won’t worsen the problem.
Clean water must always be accessible but do not add anything to it. Cider vinegar, a favourite additive said to help fight worms and other parasites, can make sour crop worse.
Give the bird a small amount of plain bio-yoghurt containing ‘friendly bacteria’ on a daily basis. The evidence for the efficacy of these bacteria in helping chickens is anecdotal but the yoghurt certainly does no harm to chickens and may help, so it is worth giving it a try. And they like it.
Try to loosen impacted material inside the crop. Using an eyedropper or syringe, open the chicken’s beak and get vegetable oil into the crop in very small quantities of no more than 5ml, once a day. Be careful to get the applicator right inside, beyond the tiny hole at the back of the bird’s tongue that leads directly to the lungs. Otherwise the bird could choke.
Follow the oil with gentle massage of the crop in a downward direction, towards the belly, just for a few minutes. The crop can be massaged again later but no more than once every hour or two to avoid upsetting the bird, which would impact on its recovery chances.
The Last Resort Against Sour Crop

Vomiting can be induced preferably by a vet and with two people involved. It must be borne in mind that the shock and upset of this procedure can easily kill an already compromised chicken.

The procedure is as follows:

Wrap the bird in a towel and gently tilt it forward (not back) so that its body is vertical to the floor and head close to the ground.
Massage the crop down towards the beak.
The beak may have to be opened to get the vomit out.
Do this for no more than half a minute, maximum.
Allow the bird to rest and attempt the procedure only once or twice.
When the crop is partly or completely emptied, allow the bird to rest and keep it separate from the flock until a full recovery is confirmed.
If this does not work, a vet can (dependent upon how ill the chicken is) perform surgery to open the crop and manually remove the blocking materials.

 

[buckabucka]

Thank you for the reply and information! I will take the dry food away. She did pick at that today. She also had a tiny bit of scramble egg and the olive oil soaked bread and yogurt.
Are sour crop and impacted crop the same thing? I will try the gentle massage. I hope she will get through this.
thanks.

 

[realsis]

impacted crop leads to sour crop, first it becomes impacted then the impacted food turns sour so that's the order of it. hope this answers your question
the impaction comes first and is still present then the food sours.

 

[buckabucka]

Thank you, that makes sense. I massaged her crop gently. She didn't want the yogurt right now, but I can try syringe feeding later. She did finally defecate for the first time since I brought her in this morning. It was watery, but at least she went.