Sour crop help

[Jkoleff83]

Hen with sour crop just had lots of brown or black liquid come up and then her comb went purple and her body seems limp, heavy open mouth breathing. Please advise if I can do anything to help save her

 

[Jkoleff83]

She passed sadly

Hen with sour crop just had lots of brown or black liquid come up and then her comb went purple and her body seems limp, heavy open mouth breathing. Please advise if I can do anything to help save her

She passed away. I'll take advice for future reference though. I had given her some vegetable oil and massaged crop twice... Anything else I could have or should have done?

 

[Razzlefrazzle]

So sorry for your loss...

Sour crop can be quite tricky to treat. One of the main dangers is excessive fluid build up in the crop. Chickens can't actually vomit so if fluid is coming out of their mouth it's backing up from the crop and they are in danger of inhaling it as it seems your hen did (a purple comb is a sign of lack of oxygen). If this happens again I would help the chicken "vomit" by holding her in the crook of your arm and tilting her forward while gently massaging the crop for a second or two at a time. There is still a danger of the chicken aspirating the liquid with this procedure though, which is why it's better to try to get things moving through her system in the right direction if possible, and then of course try and treat the actual yeast infection. Here's a good article about assessing what's going on with the crop and how to treat: https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...w-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/

Finally, prevention is a hundred thousand million times better than treatment! You probably can't prevent every case, but ensuring your hens have access to grit and clean water, as well as things like not letting them eat long grass and giving them probiotics (either in their feed or the occasional bit of yogurt) to keep the gut healthy, goes a long, long way.