Possibly Sour Crop? Possibly not? Worried "green" chicken owner

Hello and welcome to BYC!

A squishy crop is a slow crop and could be on it's way to becoming sour. If food sits to long in the crop, after several days the good bacteria disappear and the yeasts start to grow and they develop a sour crop.

Lots of reasons a crop can slow down from something as simple as indigestion, the bird has a small impaction of grass or other stiff vegetation in the gizzard or intestines somewhere or she could be becoming over loaded with worms. She could have some other illness developing as well and the crop issue is a secondary problem.

Has she been wormed recently? If not, I would get on this right way. Worms will destroy and end up killing the bird.

Give her an over all exam. Make sure her abdomen is not like a water balloon, or she is not egg bound either. You will need a latex glove and some ky-jelly or vaseline on the index finger and insert your finger straight back into the vent. If she has a stuck egg, you will feel it within the first inch. Any further back and she is not considered egg bound. Check for any injuries, lumps or mites.

Here is a nice article on egg binding should she be egg bound....https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/egg-binding-symptoms-treatment-and-prevention

Stop by this article on crops. It tells you all kinds of things on slow and sour crops and how to treat them...https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/impacted-slow-and-sour-crops-prevention-and-treatments

Keep us posted. If you need more help with this, please let us know.

 

She needs to eat. So for now, no hard foods like seeds, grains and the like. Water soluble foods only. I like to dampen layer feed for them. They readily eat it and it digests faster. You want things to move through the tract as fast as possible. No free ranging.

Things like yogurt or probiotics in the water. You want to pump up the good bacteria. You can put yogurt on hard boiled eggs. Always a favorite.

Check the crop each morning and vomit out the gunk every morning. That stuff is poison and will kill the bird if they absorb enough of it. it takes about a week to cure up a slow or sour crop as long as there is nothing else going on inside her.

 

Is her crop still full in the morning? If it is empty, the crop adjusting could be from certain foods she is eating or she could be developing a yeast infection. I have seen this snake like squiggle on birds that are in the beginnings of a slow or sour crop. You will know there is a big problem when there is still food in the crop.

I would not however, add grit to the food. Let the birds free choice on it. Too much grit can impact the gizzard. Birds know how much grit they need and when to take it in. So I would definitely put this grit on the side. Especially birds that are having crop issues. You want the food to move through the system as fast as it cand to help prevent souring. Things in the gizzard slow the food down. Birds having crop problems should be on a water soluble diet anyway. No grit needed.

Keep us posted!

 

Sounds like the crop is just slowing down for now. When it starts to smell badly, it will be considered soured. Do you ferment raw grains or are you fermenting chicken feed? I would say if you are fermenting the chicken feed, then continue doing that. The fermentation process makes for great probiotics. But if you are fermenting grains, you might hold off on those right now. Grains are harder to process in the gizzard. But if this is all you have, then use the grains.

For now, yes, stop with all the extras, as they require use of the gizzard and right now you want everything to move as fast as possible through her system. So I would only feed her the fermented feed for now.

Have you added any probiotics to the water? I know the fermented feed has it's own probiotics, but liquid anything gets into the system so much faster. It will absorb quicker into the lining of the crop and intestinal walls.

Also, if she has liquid food in her crop in the morning, you should vomit that stuff out of there. It is only a breeding ground for more bad bacteria that not only sits in the crop, but goes into the digestive tract as well. Food that sits too long and over night in the crop becomes toxic. So it is best to vomit it out of her. First thing in the morning, take her outside of the coop. Hold her like a foot ball in one arm and your other hand will support her at the crop, her beak facing in front of you. Lean yourself and her forward, supporting her at the crop and lean far enough that her beak is straight down, tail up. You are going to gently squeeze and massage her crop. As SOON as something starts to come up out of her beak, even if that is when she is only half way facing down, you are going to count to 2 and then lean her forward. Chickens only hold their breath for a second or so and can aspirate. After you stand back up at the count of 2, let her catch her breath, then lean her back down and do it again. Keep doing this until you no longer get anything out. You can never get it all out. This vomiting alone will help her heal faster. If she has to run all that toxic food through her system every day, the better chances she will turn up with a sour crop. I only vomit first thing in the morning. This way the good food and water she drinks during the day have time to absorb into her system, anything left over in the morning is starting to go toxic and I like to get that out of them as soon as possible.