Please help! Crop issues/sour crop/pendulous crop/underlying issue?

[Sai L]

Hi I'm concerned about my chicken Blackberry she's an Australorp and she's been having some crop issues. This started March 22, 2022 and my friend Southstar had originally posted about her because her x-rays showed she had managed to eat rocks, most have been removed except for a few that were adhered to her crop wall according to the vet. I thought maybe she had pika at one point so she's strictly supervised when foraging. After getting her crop flushed she seemed to be alright and her crop had gone down in size. I offer both kinds of grit for my girls and keep snacks reasonable. We also make sure our grass stays short to help prevent any other impaction when they're foraging. All my girls are de-wormed I don't know if this is relevant but I figured it should be mentioned.

However, Saturday May 7th I noticed her crop was enlarged and she was not pooping. I immediately took her to the vet, the vet did another flush and mentioned she had consumed hay. It was recommended at the time to me to use hay as a different bedding because my girls' feet did not agree with shavings. They grew up using the hay and never ate it until now, I'm ditching the hay and was wondering if construction sand would be better or something else as long as it won't cause an impaction. I took a picture of Balckberry's crop Sunday the 8th side snd frontal view.

After her crop flush I only offered her fluid and made she she started pooping before offering a small amount of soft and easily digested food (bread soaked in olive oil/boiled egg yolk, she has pooped some but not as much as normal. I'm not sure if she has pendulous crop but I ordered a chicken bra as well incase she needs it. I also have been massaging her crop and giving her some olive oil, it doesn't feel mushy but it feels like there's air in there and I here some noises when I massage it but there was no yeasty smell that came out of her beak

Blackberry has a vet appointment today because of how large her crop still is. Please let me know if there's anything else I can do for her I'd really appreciate it.

 

[azygous]

Here's a test you can perform to see if this is pendulous crop that would benefit from a bra supporting it. Get this little lady comfortable in your lap and start doing a gentle massage on her crop.

Focus your fingers in the center of the mass, moving in a circular pattern. Focus on breaking up the contents and getting them to move toward the crop "drain" in the lower one-third of the crop. If you manage to reduce the contents of the crop considerably with five to ten minutes of massage, then a crop bra would do her a lot of good.

 

[Sai L]

Here's a test you can perform to see if this is pendulous crop that would benefit from a bra supporting it. Get this little lady comfortable in your lap and start doing a gentle massage on her crop.

Focus your fingers in the center of the mass, moving in a circular pattern. Focus on breaking up the contents and getting them to move toward the crop "drain" in the lower one-third of the crop. If you manage to reduce the contents of the crop considerably with five to ten minutes of massage, then a crop bra would do her a lot of good.

Unfortunately, nothing has been moving at all, and the vet is concerned there are underlying causes, thank you for getting back to me so soon.

 

[Sai L]

Hi I'm concerned about my chicken Blackberry she's an Australorp and she's been having some crop issues. This started March 22, 2022 and my friend Southstar had originally posted about her because her x-rays showed she had managed to eat rocks, most have been removed except for a few that were adhered to her crop wall according to the vet. I thought maybe she had pika at one point so she's strictly supervised when foraging. After getting her crop flushed she seemed to be alright and her crop had gone down in size. I offer both kinds of grit for my girls and keep snacks reasonable. We also make sure our grass stays short to help prevent any other impaction when they're foraging. All my girls are de-wormed I don't know if this is relevant but I figured it should be mentioned.

However, Saturday May 7th I noticed her crop was enlarged and she was not pooping. I immediately took her to the vet, the vet did another flush and mentioned she had consumed hay. It was recommended at the time to me to use hay as a different bedding because my girls' feet did not agree with shavings. They grew up using the hay and never ate it until now, I'm ditching the hay and was wondering if construction sand would be better or something else as long as it won't cause an impaction. I took a picture of Balckberry's crop Sunday the 8th side snd frontal view.

After her crop flush I only offered her fluid and made she she started pooping before offering a small amount of soft and easily digested food (bread soaked in olive oil/boiled egg yolk, she has pooped some but not as much as normal. I'm not sure if she has pendulous crop but I ordered a chicken bra as well incase she needs it. I also have been massaging her crop and giving her some olive oil, it doesn't feel mushy but it feels like there's air in there and I here some noises when I massage

Hi I'm concerned about my chicken Blackberry she's an Australorp and she's been having some crop issues. This started March 22, 2022 and my friend Southstar had originally posted about her because her x-rays showed she had managed to eat rocks, most have been removed except for a few that were adhered to her crop wall according to the vet. I thought maybe she had pika at one point so she's strictly supervised when foraging. After getting her crop flushed she seemed to be alright and her crop had gone down in size. I offer both kinds of grit for my girls and keep snacks reasonable. We also make sure our grass stays short to help prevent any other impaction when they're foraging. All my girls are de-wormed I don't know if this is relevant but I figured it should be mentioned.

However, Saturday May 7th I noticed her crop was enlarged and she was not pooping. I immediately took her to the vet, the vet did another flush and mentioned she had consumed hay. It was recommended at the time to me to use hay as a different bedding because my girls' feet did not agree with shavings. They grew up using the hay and never ate it until now, I'm ditching the hay and was wondering if construction sand would be better or something else as long as it won't cause an impaction. I took a picture of Balckberry's crop Sunday the 8th side snd frontal view.

After her crop flush I only offered her fluid and made she she started pooping before offering a small amount of soft and easily digested food (bread soaked in olive oil/boiled egg yolk, she has pooped some but not as much as normal. I'm not sure if she has pendulous crop but I ordered a chicken bra as well incase she needs it. I also have been massaging her crop and giving her some olive oil, it doesn't feel mushy but it feels like there's air in there and I here some noises when I massage it but there was no yeasty smell that came out of her beak

Blackberry has a vet appointment today because of how large her crop still is. Please let me know if there's anything else I can do for her I'd really appreciate it.

My vet put Blackberry into a makeshift crop bra (the white sleeve and gauze), but it seemed too high up in her neck where her crop didn't seem like it was being supported so I tried making a different one. If there's something better I can use please let me know. She started pooping a bit more after I massaged her again, this time her crop did go down after she had ate a small amount of mash, my vet said if she was willing to eat a bit to give it to her but i didn't want to give her too much. So far it seems to help but I'm hoping she'll still be alright in the morning.

 

[Sai L]

Update, this morning she pooped some more but her crop sounded like there was still liquid in it. I'm not sure if I should get a second vet opinion because the one she has seen cares, I had forgot to mention she gave me meloxicam, smz, and metoclopramide for her, but I'm not sure if nystatin or miconazole would be better. I'm tempted to get a second vet opinion as well from a vet who specializes in birds. I'm at a loss and I don't know what I should do at this point...I keep massaging her and it goes down some but I'm super worried.

 

[Countryhippie]

Hi I'm concerned about my chicken Blackberry she's an Australorp and she's been having some crop issues. This started March 22, 2022 and my friend Southstar had originally posted about her because her x-rays showed she had managed to eat rocks, most have been removed except for a few that were adhered to her crop wall according to the vet. I thought maybe she had pika at one point so she's strictly supervised when foraging. After getting her crop flushed she seemed to be alright and her crop had gone down in size. I offer both kinds of grit for my girls and keep snacks reasonable. We also make sure our grass stays short to help prevent any other impaction when they're foraging. All my girls are de-wormed I don't know if this is relevant but I figured it should be mentioned.

However, Saturday May 7th I noticed her crop was enlarged and she was not pooping. I immediately took her to the vet, the vet did another flush and mentioned she had consumed hay. It was recommended at the time to me to use hay as a different bedding because my girls' feet did not agree with shavings. They grew up using the hay and never ate it until now, I'm ditching the hay and was wondering if construction sand would be better or something else as long as it won't cause an impaction. I took a picture of Balckberry's crop Sunday the 8th side snd frontal view.

After her crop flush I only offered her fluid and made she she started pooping before offering a small amount of soft and easily digested food (bread soaked in olive oil/boiled egg yolk, she has pooped some but not as much as normal. I'm not sure if she has pendulous crop but I ordered a chicken bra as well incase she needs it. I also have been massaging her crop and giving her some olive oil, it doesn't feel mushy but it feels like there's air in there and I here some noises when I massage it but there was no yeasty smell that came out of her beak

Blackberry has a vet appointment today because of how large her crop still is. Please let me know if there's anything else I can do for her I'd really appreciate it.

OKay so I am currently dealing with the ending of a similar issue. For a few days I noticed my hens crop not emptying fully and it was mostly fluid. I assumed sour crop as well, but it turned out to be such an impacted crop from eating to much grass and the fluid built up and maybe causes a bit of sour crop to go along with it. I had no smell either and only saw her regurgitate once.

I am very new to chickens and this is my first ever time treating impacted/sour crop. But I will tell you every thing I did. I was luckily enough to go to a vet that does treat poultry, they wanted to admit her and test her for 100 different things, which would have cost $2000. I of course could not afford that. So I had them do an over all check up, flush her crop of all the fluid, and prescribe a motility drug and an antibiotic, that cost over $600.

They were able to flush her crop and get all of that liquid out so see better and reported to me that there was an impaction of dead grass and food. They didn't think I could clear it on my own and insisted I admit her and I made the decision to take her home and do it myself.

So first after she got home with the flushed crop I separated her for 24 hours, with no food and water. I think that you need to flush that crop first before anything else because you need to check for an impaction. If you can't afford to have a vet do it, their are videos of how to make your chicken regurgitate the fluid. Its very tricky to do and you don't want to kill your bird, but tons of videos have done it successfully.

After you flush her crop, I left her for 24 hours in a cage in a cage separate from the other hens. As I said no food or water, because I wanted to get any left over fluid out. After that I started with her meds. They gave me a motility drug to keep things moving called Metoclopramide 2ml (which I give every 12 hours for 7 days). Then they gave me an antibiotic called SMZ TMP 240mg (which I give every 12 hours for 10 days). I believe that these drugs had a huge impact on the hen healing so quickly. I went to the vet on Tuesday and by this morning Saturday her crop and the impaction was like the size of a quarter when she woke up this morning. It was like a tennis ball of all grass In there.

Other than the prescribed meds I gave her a teaspoon of coconut oil mixed in with tiny amounts of crumble chicken feed maybe like a handful at a time, I also added warm water to the mix to make it a mash. I also gave her access to warm water to drink at this time, but I did not leave it because she would drink so much at a time and fill her crop and regurgitate it back up. I did this roughly every 4ish hours. I also mixed in some plain yogurt to give her probiotics, but I recently just bought a powder that I am trying out on all my flock as they did not like the yogurt and with the hot weather probiotics and vitamins are very important. The power is called Health gut Probiotics for poultry, I bought it off amazon for like $20.

I would not give her any Apple Cider Vinegar as there is a lot of people who say it is not that great for a chicken with impacted/sour crop, but other people disagree. I stayed away from it. Also the most important thing I did was to massage her crop every 30 of so minutes after I gave her the food and water. Make sure you do this, this to me was what a believe helped so much. I believe after giving the motility drugs, the antibiotic, coconut oil, and preforming the massages is what helped the most. There are so many people that battle impacted crop for weeks. I am still giving her massages off and on and giving her meds of course.

I hope this helped even a little bit and I hope your hen gets better.

Oh and also do you provide a dish of grit for the girls to eat?

 

[Sai L]

OKay so I am currently dealing with the ending of a similar issue. For a few days I noticed my hens crop not emptying fully and it was mostly fluid. I assumed sour crop as well, but it turned out to be such an impacted crop from eating to much grass and the fluid built up and maybe causes a bit of sour crop to go along with it. I had no smell either and only saw her regurgitate once.

I am very new to chickens and this is my first ever time treating impacted/sour crop. But I will tell you every thing I did. I was luckily enough to go to a vet that does treat poultry, they wanted to admit her and test her for 100 different things, which would have cost $2000. I of course could not afford that. So I had them do an over all check up, flush her crop of all the fluid, and prescribe a motility drug and an antibiotic, that cost over $600.

They were able to flush her crop and get all of that liquid out so see better and reported to me that there was an impaction of dead grass and food. They didn't think I could clear it on my own and insisted I admit her and I made the decision to take her home and do it myself.

So first after she got home with the flushed crop I separated her for 24 hours, with no food and water. I think that you need to flush that crop first before anything else because you need to check for an impaction. If you can't afford to have a vet do it, their are videos of how to make your chicken regurgitate the fluid. Its very tricky to do and you don't want to kill your bird, but tons of videos have done it successfully.

After you flush her crop, I left her for 24 hours in a cage in a cage separate from the other hens. As I said no food or water, because I wanted to get any left over fluid out. After that I started with her meds. They gave me a motility drug to keep things moving called Metoclopramide 2ml (which I give every 12 hours for 7 days). Then they gave me an antibiotic called SMZ TMP 240mg (which I give every 12 hours for 10 days). I believe that these drugs had a huge impact on the hen healing so quickly. I went to the vet on Tuesday and by this morning Saturday her crop and the impaction was like the size of a quarter when she woke up this morning. It was like a tennis ball of all grass In there.

Other than the prescribed meds I gave her a teaspoon of coconut oil mixed in with tiny amounts of crumble chicken feed maybe like a handful at a time, I also added warm water to the mix to make it a mash. I also gave her access to warm water to drink at this time, but I did not leave it because she would drink so much at a time and fill her crop and regurgitate it back up. I did this roughly every 4ish hours. I also mixed in some plain yogurt to give her probiotics, but I recently just bought a powder that I am trying out on all my flock as they did not like the yogurt and with the hot weather probiotics and vitamins are very important. The power is called Health gut Probiotics for poultry, I bought it off amazon for like $20.

I would not give her any Apple Cider Vinegar as there is a lot of people who say it is not that great for a chicken with impacted/sour crop, but other people disagree. I stayed away from it. Also the most important thing I did was to massage her crop every 30 of so minutes after I gave her the food and water. Make sure you do this, this to me was what a believe helped so much. I believe after giving the motility drugs, the antibiotic, coconut oil, and preforming the massages is what helped the most. There are so many people that battle impacted crop for weeks. I am still giving her massages off and on and giving her meds of course.

I hope this helped even a little bit and I hope your hen gets better.

Oh and also do you provide a dish of grit for the girls to eat?

Hi, just wanted to say thank you so much for responding. My vet also gave me the SMZ and metoclopramide as well as meloxicam. Very similar dosing instructions my girl got about 14days in total. I do offer both types of grit for my girls, they always have oyster shell and insoluble grit. I did have to tube feed her for a couple of days to give her a boost of energy since she didn't eat much before. I gave her a mixture of baby parrot food and honey and after about 2-3 days she was so much more lively and was able to eat on her own. Blackberry is doing do much better and her crop bra that I got her is working beautifully, her crop is completely empty in the morning unlike before and I'm very relieved that she can be reunited with her flock.

 

[Tristeli]

Can I ask where you guys are? I have a similar problem with my 4yo hen Chickadee and although I have access to an avian vet…no one is comfortable with crop issues. She has the same doughy ball with grit/sediment from pica and would greatly benefit from a crop flush. The minimal food water she takes in does seem to come out but that ball doesn’t seem to be going anywhere on its own.

 

[MistyDF]

Can I ask where you guys are? I have a similar problem with my 4yo hen Chickadee and although I have access to an avian vet…no one is comfortable with crop issues. She has the same doughy ball with grit/sediment from pica and would greatly benefit from a crop flush. The minimal food water she takes in does seem to come out but that ball doesn’t seem to be going anywhere on its own.

Hey Tristeli did you find any success here? I am in the exact same situation. I have been doing all the tricks and mine is able to process food. She still has what feels like a ball of clay in her crop. It has not gone down much in five days.
I have done the coconut oil and massages. Crop empties except for the “clay” ball. I also have a bra on her because she does have pendulous crop.