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TheBoyds
Chirping
- Sep 6, 2021
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Thanks for getting back!An old timer, known as Dr. Pigeon, (Muard Naugle was 1 in a million!) told me that if you can open the beak a bit, hold up to your nose & get a whiff...if you smell something that reminds you of Sauerkraut, it is sour crop.
I've had a few occasions of a sour smelling crop & I did what he recommended & did get good results, mostly pigeons as I've had them for decades, but also a few chickens the past 4 years.
If it's a mild case sometimes a product called Ideal Pills works, activated charcoal based, they're meant for pigeons so I gave 5 to a chicken for a few days & she did great (chicken weighed exactly 5x what my pigeons weigh).
https://www.versele-laga.com/en/vl/oropharma/products/oropharma-idealpills
If it was more sour, I did a warm water mixed with baking soda (1 teasp per gallon), also Sav a Chick electrolytes & Probitics & withheld solid food for a few hours, then smell crop again to see if improved & check droppings. You may have to withhold solid feed overnight, letting bird digest this liquid & flush crop through, but the bird needs to drink a lot. I have a room where I can warm it up to 80-85 degrees so bird will drink.
Sometimes that works, or some people add nystatin for fungal, but you need to open beak & look, to see if there's also canker going on, canker resembles cheese. In a pigeon it's like chunks of cheese, pale yellow. But when my chicken had canker it didn't look that bad, it just looked like Roo had been eating American cheese & some little pieces were still in his mouth. Ronidazole or Metronidazole addresses canker.
If the crop is huge & has strong sour stench, then yes, it's better to get that stuff out, but it can be dangerous if you've never done it. The first step is mix up warm water with a few pinches of baking soda. Using an oral syringe to give a pigeon something is easy, but a chicken normally doesn't appreciate it at all. A chicken that's not calm being handled will squirm or flap to get away from that scary thing in your hand. In that case you either have to offer it so they drink on their own (they rarely drink enough) or learn how to syringe a chicken without them choking. It does take practice, I've tried to teach a few friends, some got the hang of it, some call me on the phone to come over, after they've gotten drenched by what was intended to be given to the bird. So that's the 1st challenge, getting the solution into the chicken, without wearing it.
For pigeons I use a 6cc or 12cc oral syringe.
For chickens I prefer larger ones but if all you have are 12cc, it just means you have to refill & do it a few times, which chickens do not enjoy. If you handle your chickens often, it will become much easier to tend to them, so keep that in mind for future reference. A weekly sitting on your lap, check for mites, check ears, eyes, throat, trim nails, pet & talk soothingly, get the bird used to being handled & not to fear a clipper or syringe in your hand, which comes in real handy if you have to administer medicine or flush crop someday.
Once the warm baking soda solution is in the crop, gently massage, like you are also petting the bird, so this is relaxing. What you're doing is mixing the good solution with the sour mess, which most times is thick & gooey inside crop. By thinning down, you're making it easier to either digest through, or to pour out. (Vomit) Thick gunk will definitely be more difficult & makes the bird choke. Also, the baking soda sweetens the crop...those are the words of the old timer. It means it literally improves the pH inside the crop. By now the crop should feel sloshy, very liquidy, but if not, more baking soda water can be given. Another reason the mixture is warm, like hand feeding formula type of warm, is because often anything cold will tend to chill the bird, and often a chilled bird results in a sour crop, even in a healthy bird, and what I mean by that is, for example, baby pigeons need their parents to keep them warm, and if they happen to fall out of the nest, they will become chilled & after some time their body will get to a point where it slows down & the crop goes sour. That's why pigeon fanciers, if they find a baby that fell out of the nest bowl, will 1st see how cold it is, if it's still warm you can stick baby right back under warm mama, but if the baby bird ice cold, we must bring it inside, warm it in a brooder, and then syringe warm water with Sav a chick probiotics & electrolytes & if the crop is slow, add baking soda to help encourage digestion to get crop moving again.
So once crop is sloshy liquid & not thick goo, you can either add Sav a Chick probiotics & electrolytes hoping this will get the crop pH good enough that the bird will digest on through...which is possible, IF the crop is Not past the point of extreme, sour nastiness & there isn't a ton of hard, undigested hard chunks of food stuck inside there.
If sour crop is caught early on, the warm solution itself could do the trick. But sometimes, that nasty stuff must come out. If you see the bird pooping & it's not just watery but actually has some green thickness of poo, then the bird is presently digesting. If you see only watery stuff, greenish or yellowish tinge but no solid at all, then digestive process is not flowing along as it should. I know it's alot of, if you see this or that, but it really is important to determine what stage & how long the sour crop has been going on. Hopefully you can get a vet good with birds to determine & also figure out what caused the sour crop, as often it is a symptom from something else, could be fungal, bacterial, etc.
I'm not suggesting making a bird vomit, but in some cases it's necessary, so I will share how I do it. After bird has a baking soda warm water sloshy crop & is relaxed, I do it quickly, almost in 2 blinks of an eye, but I've successfully done this, from Canaries to Macaws since the 80's.
I use my finger to gently hold beak in open position (doesn't need to be super wide, just open enough to accommodate a finger) so if you can hold a bird on your lap and get it used to your finger partly in it's mouth, at 1st bird will try to spit it out or a Roo might peck ya, but after a few times of practice, my birds just sat still on my lap, gently, with my finger sticking in the side of the beak, holing beak open enough just for my 1 finger. Once bird was relaxed with my finger there, I gently stand holding bird close then bend, tipping bird with slightly open mouth stratecially over the bucket & nasty stuff poured right out. The whole "me bending tipping bird over the bucket" action is done within 3 seconds, then in 1 second I stand, bird is back upright & I remove my finger from the side of the beak at the same time. Bird may flick a tongue, but birds have always been fine, not even so much as a cough afterwards. With a chicken, they have such a more round, plump body shape, I hold the bird in such a way that 1 hand is around head with 1 finger at side of beak holding it open & my other arm is holding the body, wings are kind of naturally pinned by how I'm holding, tipping & the hand that is gently at the crop, so when stuff gushes out beak, simultaneously apply gentle pressure with hand already there at crop. Again, the whole thing is about 3 seconds & it's amazing how much sour liquid pours out, and I do mean pour. If it seems thick, more warm water is needed. Sometimes little chunks of nasty sour feed grains or undigested pellets come gushing out with the liquid, that's why giving the bird plenty of liquid is essential. You want chunks pouring out along with the liquid, not get hung up to choke. Afterwards the bird just usually looks down at the bucket then back at me, like what's up with the bucket mom? I then sit back down with calm bird on my lap, relax a bit, petting bird & see how crop feels. Is there more stuff in there? At this point, depending upon how bad that stuff now in the bucket smells & looks, I can either give the bird some warm baking soda mixture & add Sav a Chick electrolytes & probiotics & let the bird hang out in a warm area, or I may need to do another crop flush in abt 10 minutes. The most consecutive tip & puke gush moves I ever had to do was 3 & I let the bird rest between them quite a bit, giving oral syringes of the warm liquid should be peaceful & calm, with gentle voice & pets, not rushed.
Well, I didn't mean to write a book here I'm sorry about that, I'm doing talk to text. I normally hesitate to advise on puke flushing out a crop, but there are cases where one may have to, so I figured I'd share what has worked for me. Also I want to mention again, often the sour crop is a secondary ailment, a symptom, and may not the actual illness itself, so that needs to be determined. There have been cases where I had birds obviously not feel well, sitting there with sad eyes and ruffled feathers, and upon examination found sour crop, but might also have canker going on, or fungal, or might have coccidiosis. Just like when a human has a tummy ache, gotta find the reason, the main culprit, is it a meal that just didn't agree or a stomach virus or ulcer?
Most bird ailments are bacterial, fungal or viral.
Best of luck with your sweet bird & I hope all turns out well!
