Pendulous Crop

[DragonSadhana]

I noticed one of my hens had a low-hanging crop yesterday. I brought her inside, made her vomit as much as possible, and then fashioned her a "crop bra" to keep her crop elevated. I was going to keep her on a 24 hour water-only fast (mixed with a tiny amount of baking soda), and then feed her yogurt for another 24 hours before putting her back outside.

Today, her crop feels empty and her poop looks normal. (Yesterday, her poops were very watery.) She flew onto a kitchen counter when I was in another part of the house, opened a bag of pretzels and began eating. I caught her, and hid the pretzels. Funny chicken.

Tonight, I was going to let her have some yogurt with some Nutri-Drench. I noticed online that people, once starting to feed their hens soft food again, were emptying the crops at night.

I'm curious about experiences here. Should the hen's crop be empty by the time night has fallen? I would think it would be empty by morning, and if not, that's when you would need to empty it yourself to make sure the food isn't just sitting there fermenting..

 

[CMV]

I have a limited amount of experience with the crop issues, so I don't feel like I can give you the full answers you need. So, here's a BUMP to get your problem back to the top of the queue.

I never emptied my bird's crop unless absolutely necessary because of the dangers involved with the procedure. You are vomitting the bird, I assume? And not just draining with a tube/catheter? If you are using the tube method then there is little danger, but the other method is very risky.

 

[DragonSadhana]

I was vomiting the bird in ten second intervals without a tube. I only did it yesterday and had her on water for 24 hours. She's had yogurt for dinner tonight and is resting comfortably in the dark of the kitchen. I don't want to have to do it, actually. She's lively and hungry. I just want to make sure she won't end up slowly starving.

 

[DragonSadhana]

And thank you for the bump!