Sour crop- is it to late to save her?

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Songster
Jul 24, 2017
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I have a 5 year old Buff Orpington who started acting lethargic about 6 days ago. I thought she was acting this way because it’s been freezing here in MN. The next day she was still acting the same and wouldn’t eat any treats. We brought her in and I noticed her crop was really hard.. so I massaged it and it then became really squishy firm like a water balloon. I didn’t notice any smell from her mouth so I thought we were making progress. The next morning her crop was the same. It didn’t go down but I could feel bits of something in there. I took her food and water away and kept massaging it periodically over 12 hours. It would make a gurgling noise. I gave her the water back and she wasn’t drinking much... I read on a previous post to give her a monistat suppository for yeast infection- giving her a 1/3 of it in the morning and a 1/3 at night. The next morning her crop was less swollen and I could smell a horrible poop smell from her mouth every time I massaged her crop. Her poop is almost non existent and very watery with little bits of dark green.. She was acting extremely lethargic so I gave her scrambled eggs with olive oil and the other 1/3 of the suppository, she seems to have a little bit more energy but not much.. her crop is huge again, full of air and little bits of something in there. I don’t know what to do and I know she’s not feeling well. Is it too late to save her?? Please help me so I can help this little girl.
 
Not too late. You are doing well in your treatment. Here's more information so you might find a way to fine tune your treatment. https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...w-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/

Continue the miconzole twice a day for a full seven days. Update this thread as to her progress and the rest of us will offer thoughts that might help.
I think I made it worse?!? I had to give her a bath to clean up her back end and when I was towel drying her off I kinda tipped her to get her on my lap.. all of a sudden I smelled this horrific smell and she had liquid/ thick mucous coming out of her mouth. I cleaned her up and she was gasping. 😭. She kept her head up and kept trying to swallow. I immediately picked her up to make her stand. When I checked on her, she is just laying there but isn’t breathing heavy anymore. Did I accidentally make it go into her lungs?!? I just ordered Nystatin from all bird products. Hopefully it gets here before she gets worse or dies. Have you used this before? How do I even dose her once I get this? Should I be rubbing her crop or letting her eat eggs?
 
I have also read multiple things about putting and not putting ACV in her water to help with sour crop. Is this a good thing to do or not do? There’s so many conflicting answers out there!
 
ACV is fine for helping to prevent sour crop, but it's useless to treat a yeasty crop. If you had made things worse, your hen would have died on the spot. It sometimes happens that some sour fluid from the crop gets into the top of the airway, but it take quite a lot to get into the lungs to cause serious problems.

Yes, I have used Nystatin under the label Medistatin. It's a decent anti-yeast medication. But miconazole works just as well. Please keep that up while you wait for the Nystatin. In fact, it will hurt nothing to double the dose. Continue twice a day, and please read my article again so you are clear on how to treat a sour crop. You do not want to massage a sour crop.
 
ACV is fine for helping to prevent sour crop, but it's useless to treat a yeasty crop. If you had made things worse, your hen would have died on the spot. It sometimes happens that some sour fluid from the crop gets into the top of the airway, but it take quite a lot to get into the lungs to cause serious problems.

Yes, I have used Nystatin under the label Medistatin. It's a decent anti-yeast medication. But miconazole works just as well. Please keep that up while you wait for the Nystatin. In fact, it will hurt nothing to double the dose. Continue twice a day, and please read my article again so you are clear on how to treat a sour crop. You do not want to massage a sour crop.
I just read your article. You have a lot of helpful information in there! I will continue with the treatment plan and go from there. Will I have caused damage if I had been massaging it? Thank you for all of your help with this!
 
No, you didn't cause any damage. Massaging a crop that has mostly liquid in it is just risky is all. Pushing the liquid upward into the throat can cause aspiration. What's really risky is trying to make a sour crop patient vomit. People have caused instant death doing that.

I can't tell you how badly I feel when I come across a sour crop thread too late to head off a post advising vomiting a chicken and then the thread maker next has a post reporting their chicken just died suddenly after they tried to "vomit" her. It's one of the worst of the sometimes misguided advice people try to give, meaning well, but wrong in practice.
 
I might just add that for a sour crop full of liquid that fails to empty after one or two days on miconazole, it's probably due to more yeast than the amount of miconazole is able to tackle. Increasing the dose to double the amount or keeping to the same amount but giving it three times a day will usually start conquering the yeast. Once the yeast is reduced, the crop will empty rather dramatically on its own without trying to invert the chicken and making her vomit to empty the crop. Even if you succeed in making a chicken vomit without her aspirating any liquid, it only comes right back because it's the yeast overrunning the crop that is causing it to fill up.

By the way, some say you should withhold food and water. Not necessary. The patient usually doesn't feel like eating or drinking for one thing, and when she feels ready to eat, she will not over indulge to her detriment. Just make her regular feed available with access to fresh water. She will probably enjoy some Greek yogurt since she will crave it to replenish her system with good microbes. Giving a probiotic tablet will help in lieu of yogurt.
 

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