Burst crop.

Have any of you ever had a bird with a burst crop?

Neither have I but I am starting to wonder.

I have a 2 month old chick with a very huge, pendulous crop. It is very visible despite the generous feathering. The bird does odd movements, like its crop is bothering it. It does not feel hard or tight like an impacted crop. SOft and squishy, but covers the entire beast area of the bird. Does NOT go down overnight.

I have tipped the bird upside down and 'squeezed' out some of the contents. Quite thick, slime, yellowish, not much odour. I don't do this too much as it obviously distresses the bird. They are in a confined pen with shavings for bedding and still eating chick crumbles, not even onto chicken sized pellets yet.

If this is an impacted crop it is the first I have ever had in a bird so young. If it is sour crop I don't know how to recognize it since I have never experiencds it with any of my birds. This chick is not exhibiting signs of starvation, but this crop is obvioulsy not moving food through at the proper rate. Any thoughts?

I would think it was sour crop. I have never had it before either, but that is what I would suspect from your description.

58 views, guess no one has had any experience with sour crop. I was wondering if you offered it some grit? Maybe it just never had the chance to get any.

Actually, doesn't sound all that good, the stuff you squished out, well, not sure about that either. If a chick is on starter and not exposed to anything that needs to be ground up, there is no need for grit. Starter is water soluble. Grit is used for when they are getting into foods that are not water soluble, like grains. Think these chicks are not exposed to that yet. But....then on the other hand. If they are on shavings and probably are eating some shavings, then I would think that grit may be required. On the fence about that one.

Wondering how the other chick is doing, think only 2 hatched out of the dozen. We'll talk more at brunch later on this morning, c.u. in a few hours. Have a wonderful and great day, CynthiaM.

If it is sour crop baking soda mixed with water and fed to the chick will make it better.

I have seen something like this but never was able to cure it so can't help much, one time I read you could offer it some tomato with a bit of olive oil in it, thinking the oil will help move things along and the tomoto will appeal to the chickee?

Could be a bacterial infection? Often times bacteria can produce gas through its respiration process, which may account for the swelling of the croup, and the slimey yellow goop. Just a thought?

I too was thinking possible infection.

It's a puzzler.

It might be an infection, but would that account for such a large volume of gunk in the crop?

Drained out a bit more today and it is somewhat foamy, which says I either shook the chicken too hard while handling it (no I didn't) or there is some sort of fermentation taking place in the crop and this food stuff sitting in there is turning into beer. Or something.

I have isolated the chick and am going to see what happens. Unless it's eating shavings, there is no way that it can consume enough food to account for the huge size of the crop, so I think there is foaming and bubbling and expanding going on in there. A chemical reaction?

Thanks everyone. Shall keep you posted.

Sorry to hear about your chick uno. I agree that it sounds like sour crop from your description. I’ve only had one experience with sour crop and sadly, it didn’t end well. (My EE rooster didn’t make it past the vomiting stage.)

From what I gather sour crop is a form of yeast infection. I recall reading somewhere about someone using clotrimazole cream (yes, that kind of cream) as a last ditch effort to treat sour crop before attempting surgery. Supposedly it worked. Drats, I wish I would have bookmarked the page now...

If it is infact a type of yeast infection, then perhaps a bit of diluted vinegar fed by eye dropper might help. Then, maybe fallow up with Pop's Alkazelser (sp?) remedy after a while. I'm not sure, but it might be worth a try. I don't think it would hurt anything!
Just a suggestion.

How about some athletes foot cream in a little something tasty? Apple sauce, yoghurt? It's not meant to be swallowed, but if it is sour crop, it's worth a try since the outcome is usualy not good.

Don't use any Vinigas with the Baking soda but one way to go would be a large dose of Silver soloution with the baking soda and that way you will get infection yeast and sour crop all in one, hand fed parrots get sour crop and it works 100%

jocelyn wrote:How about some athletes foot cream in a little something tasty? Apple sauce, yoghurt? It's not meant to be swallowed, but if it is sour crop, it's worth a try since the outcome is usualy not good.

If it is sour crop the only thing that I know that works is Baking soda

Hey, Pops, what is silver solution? Some of us have never seen sour crop, so have to ask, grin.

Found some Nystatin in the fridge from 1992. It's a long shot but trying that. The bird is not looking good. Crop is HUGE. Overnight confinement did not result in smaller crop. SHe keeps eating. I cannot seem to dislodge any blockage that might be there. Poor bird.

oh dear that is sad, i don;t know what to do either...

jocelyn wrote:Hey, Pops, what is silver solution? Some of us have never seen sour crop, so have to ask, grin.

I did a post on Ionic silver on this site a while ago, Ionic silver destroys over 700 different Virus and bacteria, Sour crop is when food starts to ferment in the crop, the baking soda will neutralize it if it is sour crop, must be given with lots of water and or silver solution, if it is yeast the silver will work on that to if it is an infection silver will work on that to. The other choice may be a large dose of tylan

This is ridiculous.

It seems to me there are air bubbles squishing around under the skin on the chick's back. There should be no air under her skin anywhere, unless something is seriously wrong. The only time I've had air under the skin was when a coyote attack punctured deep into the chest and the bird died shortly after, despie efforts to save her. But her lungs were punctured and air got under her skin.

I have suggested it's time for surgery. Dr. Husband made a bad face and turned white. I have left him for a few moments to mull over this life saving intervention. Then I am going to take him a shot of Crown Royal, tell him to drink most of it but save a little to sterilize his pocket knife. He fainted last time we did crop surgery but I hope he has honed his doctoring skills since then (not!).

I've done this before. I am thinking this might be a blockage since the typical smell of sour crop does not seem to be present. The patient is weak. The Dr. is waffling. Will nurse Uno have to save the day? Stay tuned...

This reminds me of M*A*S*H for some reason.

In M.A.S.H. the doctors don't say, argle, glurk, bleck, blurgle...and fall on the floor. (he's resting his head on the kitchen table as I type this. He was no help at all!)

I have attempted to rid bird of as much guck as possible with the 'upside down and squeeze' method. I have given her a little water, manipulated crop (stirred, not shaken) and then re-emptied.

I think this crop is plugged. I don't know what unless this bird ate a cedar shaving, which they all do. PErhaps this one ate a large shaving or has a very small crop exit hole. I don't know. I just hope what I drain out happens to be the offending plugged bit. Surgery is off until Nurse Hoolihan gets back from leave. Klinger would help but he's having a dress fitting. Radar...has his head on the kitchen table making gagging noises.

Uno, I'm wondering if your chick has a ruptured air sac and that balloon you think is her crop is actually a big bubble of trapped air?? I'm thinking this because you described feeling air bubbles under the skin on the back. I had a hen that was attacked by a fox last summer that was severely injured and had badly ruptured air sacs due to the trauma. She was in terrible shape and I thought she was dead until I picked her up. She had huge swelling on her chest and her face blew up with every breath. I was very quickly to learn that chickens had air sacs, had not a clue about chickens having air sacs until that point. What I had to do was keep the leaked air drained to take the pressure off in order for the air sac to heal and "reseal" itself. I'm going to try to find the website that helped me treat her but basically it was piercing the skin where the leaked air was with a large gauge needle (no syringe attached) and release the air through the needle. You pinch the skin to make a tent, then just pierce the tented skin to get the needle just under the skin without poking any other tissue. Re feel the "crop". Do you think this is a huge balloon of air?

This link might help you. The link is about treating pigeons with ruptured air sacs but would be same symptoms and treatment for chickens.
http://www.pigeonrescue.co.uk/rupturedairsac.htm

uno wrote:This is ridiculous.
It seems to me there are air bubbles squishing around under the skin on the chick's back.

I have had THIS before in a young splash cochin poult. She did not have a distended crop. I DID suspect her of having Mareks though but she was unhealthy throughout her short life and did not grow much.

Interested in hearing how this turns out.

Sue

Lilfarm, this is a puzzler.

I know for certain her crop is massively full, it is so heavy it almost tips her onto her face. Can feel the gritty nature of whatever is in there.

But there is a bubble! This is a separate issue and I don't know if one is causing the other or not. I cannot imagine what kind of trauma might have caused air to gather under her skin! She lives with one other chick in a protected little pen!

I poked the bubble, but did not leave the needle in to aid in air removal. Will try that if I can get Nurse Fainty Face to hold the patient while I use a cow needle to drain air.