Squidgy crop

When Cinnamon had a squidgy crop, I gently tipped her so that her head was pointing to the ground and she brought up a load of foul smelling brown stuff. Did it a couple of times a day for a couple of days and eventually it emptied and she started eating and looking a lot brighter. Not had any trouble since (touch wood!). Maybe try that and see if she brings anything up? Hope shes ok.

The stuff i've read said to gently tip the hen forward so her beak tilts towards the floor, this will help any liquid in the crop drain out. I know massaging is for impacted crop but perhaps some very gentle massaging too. From a previous thread I know I brought up the subject of antibiotics but they're no good in this instance as it's a fungal infection not bacterial. For some reason natural bio yogurt comes to mind too - someone confirm either for us please.

Well done for noticing so quickly, I went through this a while back as a result of an impacted crop but didn't realise until far too late to stop the inevitable.

Good luck

Sour crop usually eminates a foul odour, but then if its in early stages then it may not be fully developed. The squidyness is actually a side effect, it is the bird drawing water from the digestive system, this will cause your bird to be very dehydrated.

Making your chicken sick is one method - it involves holding the chicken upside down with her neck straight down and allowing any fluid to come out, obviously do not move her until all the fluid is gone and she has stopped dripping - chickens do not have a gag reflex and the fluid will go down the airway and that is the end.

Method:-

You start by putting an eyedropper full of vegetable oil (any oil will do olive etc) into the crop and then massaging the crop. This will soften the impaction. Put the dropper all the way back in the bird's mouth and slowly push out the oil. remember you need to get it as far back as possible birds do not have a gag reflex so choke very easily, their airway is a hole at the base of the tounge so you need to get it past this, empty it very slowly to allow it to go down.

Next mix 1 pint warm water with 1/2 cup bicarb of soda

Fill the syringe and insert it as far as you can into the mouth of the chicken. Have someone hold the bird upright in front of you. Slowly and very gently fill the crop, do not over fill and get liquid into that hole at the base of the tongue. Gently press up under the chicken’s breast and slide your hand up to the crop. This makes the bird open its mouth and the impacted mess will come out the bird's mouth. Push the contents up and out of the crop and out of the mouth. make sure you are holding teh bird upside down. Repeat this gentle stroking pressure until nothing comes up.

If there the crop is not empty, flush it again until it is empty.

Once the crop is empty, give another dropper of oil.

Now personally we only use this method as a last resort due to the risks of the bird choking to death but listed the method here for you so you had it.


Sour crop is caused by a fungal infection and if you go to the vet he will prescribe nystatin but we use oral Daktarin - its an anti fungal medicine used for oral thrush available from all chemists. pop a pea sized drop on a small peice of apple (similar size) and see if she will eat it - if not open her beak and shove it as far to the back of her throat as you can now push it even further with your little finger - you can push your whole finger in without causing more than discomfort. This needs to be repeated 3 to 4 times per day.

Whilst your chicken has sour crop do not allow it to eat anything but have plenty of fresh water available extra food will just cause the problem to worsen but fluid needs to be high due to dehydration - whichever method you use!

Offer her live yoghurt or something with "friendly" bacteria, it will help her digest anything else left in the crop. (this can be syringed down too if shes not eating)

sorry another Jennie essay again

B+! Must try harder.

I wish I had this info available when I lost 1 of my girls! so please no sorry's for the essay!

Perhaps we could get this stickied and add other helpful info to it?

B+ Sue - i'm sure you over marked there, take off points for terrible spelling and grammar and I'm sure we get no where near a B !!!

Thanks for the advice. I'm really grateful. I will have a go tomorrow but I'm really hoping Lily is better on her own because I'm not sure I'm up to the job. (I can cope with anything to do with humans but go to pieces with animals) I've had 2 old girls on antibiotics lately so have some special syringes the vet gave me. Funny he never said anything about putting antibiotic far back down the throat but as they are both OK now I must have got that right. I will probably phone the vet anyway tomorrow as happy to pay for medication if it's the best thing. (Don't tell OH though, he thinks I spend too much on the girls as it is.) Just wish I felt a bit more confident to do it myself.

Do you want a 'sticky' Useful Information thread? I can do that for you if you like. And you could PM me if you want to nominate a post to be added to it.

(On each post, in the top right corner near the 'report post triangle', there's a thing that says 'permalink', if you right-click on that and select 'copy-shortcut', then paste that into a PM to me, it will send me straight to the relevant post)

Let me know if you want it setting up.

OOO yes please Sarz. I cant be the only one who cant find stuff using search, and has to reread hundreds of posts to find things.
And before anyone says I havent been on here long enough to have read hundreds of posts in the first place I have to confess to having been a closet rooster for a while before I actualy joined

This is how I imagine colonic irrigation would be............but at the opposite end!

Didn't someone once say that feeding live maggots to chooks with crop problems helps? Or is that just for impacted crop? The maggots eat through the contents to allow them to pass into their systems

I had a girl with sour crop. My friend who is a vet said to give her live yoghurt but many don't agreee with this for sourcrop. So anyway, I went down the maggot line and fed her live white maggots. The maggots didn't work, so I went onto the live yoghurt which did help a little. But turned out she had eaten too much and the muscles that held the crop in place had given way and it was twisted.

Snadger - colonic irrigation of chickens - Nice!!! what a thing to wake up to.

If you go to the vets Frias then you will probably get nystatin which is an anti-fungal medication - theres no such thing as sending too much on your girls Frias. and I have to admit I'm not a fan of the flushing method unless absolutely necessary, I tend to go for the medication line first.