Slow / Impacted Crop

[Pundamilia]

I have a problem with one of my girls - Bella - I wanted to ask you about...

About four weeks ago, I started to notice Bella drinking more and her poos during the day were soft - sometimes watery. I reduced vegetable and fruit treats in case this was the cause but it continued. I then noticed her crop was really quite large during the day - and worse, wasn't completely empty in the morning. I put her on a week of Flubenvet to worm her (and the other girls of course). Still no help. Crop large, squishy by day (I think because of all the water she drinks) and firmer by evening. Loose and downright watery poos during the day but usually pretty normal by night. I talked to my vet a couple of times. He says it sounds like her crop is slow - could be a partial impaction and suggested giving her layers pellets - or mash - plus let her free range so the moving around can help plus she should pick up fibre. Through everything Bella is still laying 5 eggs a week. She is eating anything I give her and drinking loads. Last week I gave her layers mash with probiotic yoghurt for breakfast for three days. I then started her on Avipro probiotic four days ago which goes in their water. She drinks that fine. When she is out foraging she gets lots of bugs and worms and some very short grass. She is a daemon forager and her enthusiasm for this hasn't eased even with a huge crop. She has been getting out for 1-2 hours each day during the week and for 4-5 hours each day at the weekend. I never feed her large quantities of anything but it doesn't take much for her crop to balloon as it never properly empties. I got a bit of a fright three days ago. She came out in the morning ravenous as ever and had a little mash then a big drink. She then drooled out some of the contents of her crop. I picked her up and tipped her over briefly and a pile of crop contents came shooting out. They were brown - watery mash really. There isn't a disgusting smell so I don't think her crop is sour. I don't particularly want to do the tipping up, crop emptying thing as I think it is too dangerous. I have mixed some epsom salts into her mash the past two mornings to see if that gets her digestive tract going. I really am at my wits end. She seems happy enough except when her crop gets too big - she looks really uncomfortable then. My vet says that as long as she is pooing she isn't completely impacted so he wouldn't want to intervene and operate. I understand that but I don't want to leave things till they are critical before doing something either.

Does anyone have any suggestions re feeding, care, what to do next? Does anyone have/know of a vet that specialises in chickens that might be open to my questions. I think my vet is pretty well versed in chickens but not a specialist.

Bella is only 10 months old but she is a big girl with a big personality. I want to do everything I can to help.

 

[Eggcessive]

You may want to check into a crop bra for your hen. She may just be a chronic overeater, and her crop can become stretched and not work properly. Have you checked to see if her crop empties overnight? If not, I would confine her to a crate for a day, with only water and a little tsp of yogurt, and see if her crop empties normally.

Go to the top of this page to “search forums” and enter articles, then look for “Treating sour and impacted crops” by Azygous for a good article and to see how to make a crop bra. Hers is the second article that pops up, but the first one by Two Crows is also good to read.

 

[Pundamilia]

Her crop hasn't been empty in the morning for at least two weeks EXCEPT last Monday morning when her crop was perfectly fine. I am completely flummoxed as to why this was the case. On the previous day she was feed small portions of layers pellets and spent 4 or 5 hours free ranging round the garden. When her crop was empty on that Monday morning I thought that there must have been an impaction that had cleared. Sadly, even with modest portions of layers pellets on the Monday her crop grew and it has never been fully empty since. It gets huge then shrinks a bit then gets huge again

 

[Eggcessive]

My chickens love a treat of scratch, but I have been withholding that for about a month due to a hen of mine suffering a crop problem. I have been sticking to strictly layer pellets and an occasional scrambled egg chopped finely to share.

I never treated or saw a crop disorder for almost 5 years, but since then I see one every now and then, and I think it is related to some other problem that causes the crop slowdown. If I lose one, I usually try to do a necropsy to look for a problem.