NOT AN EMERGENCY- just a question

[missychicky]

What do you mean when you say to check your chickens crop?

 

[Kim65]

My understanding of this is to feel the front chest of the chicken and slightly to the left, that's where the crop is.

The crop is the first holding station in the bird's digestive system. It is where the newly eaten food goes after the chicken swallows. In the evening, when a chicken roosts, it will gorge itself to fill the crop, and you can feel it if you feel around on the front of the chest. It will feel like a big hard lump, which *I* thought as a new chicken owner was a tumor

.

The food trickles down into the digestive system from the crop, and keeps the chicken going during the night and while resting.

An empty crop feels like "nothing", no lump. A sick chicken surrounded by food will often have an empty crop, it tells you it is not eating when you feel nothing in the crop.

A bulging crop with a sick looking chicken may mean a blockage of some sort.

I've read that you can express the contents of the crop upward and out by massaging upward. I've not done that though, but it is a remedy for a blockage preventing the crop from emptying into the rest of the digestive system.

Hope that helps

 

[missychicky]

Thanks! that clears up all my questions.