esther Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 I am new to chickens since February and so would appreciate any help at all. One of my chooks has been doing strange movements for about 8 days now. The movements involve her head, neck and chest, and are quite jerky. It is as though she is trying to move the base of her neck in circles, or sometimes just up and down, or side to side. I thought it might be a way for her to rearrange her crop - it first started after she ate quite a lot of leftover rice in one go, and her crop became quite swollen. But the movements continued even when her crop got smaller again. Then about three days ago we realised that she probably had sour crop. Her crop had got very big again and was squishy. I had tried to smell her breath, but was only able to detect a faintly bad smell. So on Monday evening we turned her upside down and gently massaged her crop - loads of nasty liquid came out. We then gave her some live yoghurt - she ate about 3 desert spoons of it. On Tuesday (yesterday) she looked a bit better, but was still doing the strange movements, so we tried to make her vomit again (both in the morning and in the evening), but nothing came out. We gave her more yogurt anyway. After the yogurt she started to shake a bit - like she was shivering. I have never seen her do that before, and she didn't do it again for the rest of the evening. Today she looked very swollen again, but otherwise fine, but I didn't have time this morning to try to make her vomit. Overall in the last few days she has had very few other symptoms - she is still laying, preening, still eating and drinking, and her poos look fine. Her eyes are still bright and she has no discharge. She is mostly alert, although sometimes very briefly a bit lethargic, and then fine again. There seemed to be more strange neck movements than normal yesterday, it's as though they are getting worse. Are the movements related to the sour crop? And has the sour crop all cleared up if she won't vomit the liquid any more? Or do we need to keep trying to empty out any liquid as it builds up? And do we need to be carful how much yoghurt she has? She is still eating normal pellets as well, and stil eating grass - should we be keeping her off solid food altogether? (We have nowhere to issolate her away from the other two - so she'll be able to eat whatever they eat during the day.) Sorry for such a long post! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Egluntyne Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 Hmmmmm.......when you examine her, first thing in the morning, does her crop still feel full. If so she could have an impacted crop. Impacted crop and sour crop often go hand in hand as the contents fester and the fungal infection runs riot. Why not give her more yoghurt or a swig of olive oil and give the crop a thorough massage twice a day ..... and give her sloppy feed such as pellets mixed to a porridge and a bit more yoghurt added. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chanters Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 One of mine had an impacted crop and began making funny neck movements like she was trying to push things through into her crop. She went down hill quickly and (not to alarm you) died after taking her to the vet. She had to be operated on as initially we thought she's swallowed some string. The vet did say however that there seemed to be something not quite right with her internal bits though so it may have been just down to genetics etc. I've also heard feeding maggots whole can help relieve impacted crop. Keep up the massaging and like Eglutine says, use the olive oil. If there's no improvement a trip to the vets may be required. Hope her condition improves! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chanters Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 Oh forgot to mention, the vet did hand me a syringe and some paraffin oil to administer to the poorly chook to help flush her crop out. Unfortunately she didn't survive long enough for me to get chance to use it. You could contact your vet to see if they have anything like that you could buy from them? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 If the crop is impacted, it will be hard. Definitely white fishing maggots for this problem. I don't know anything about Sour crop. My Kelly has been doing funny neck movements too. I treated her with Flubenvet because I thought it was GapeWorm. She definitely improved but now the neck-pulling is back again. Do you think it could be GapeWorm? If so Flubenvet is the best wormer. I hit mine hard by double dosing and 3 weeks later I am just starting it again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esther Posted April 10, 2008 Author Share Posted April 10, 2008 Thank you for your advice and suggestions. We managed to get a recommendation for a good vet in Kenilworth that knows loads about chickens, so we took Gertie in today. He said that she has a problem with the muscles in her crop which means that she is unable to process all her food. The crop gets swollen, and will sag - sometimes down to the floor. It is called pendulous crop, and it can often lead to sour crop. Her crop was not impacted. The strange neck movements were her trying to regurgitate her food. (He did a proper search down her throat to see if she had anything stuck, but there was nothing trapped there - just lots of fluid.) He said that there is no known treatment, and she will gradually loose more and more weight until she dies. (There is an operation that you can do where you remove a part of the crop, and sew the rest back together to make it smaller again, but it is mostly a cosmetic thing rather than a cure.) He also said that he has seen more and more of these cases since people have started keeping just 3 or 4 chickens, rather than larger numbers in one place. He sees about one of these cases a month. He said they don't know what causes it, as no-one has done any proper research on it. I asked if we should feed her anything special - like just soft food. He said to feed her anything she will eat, and also to empty the fluid out as it builds up. It's so very sad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ain't Nobody Here Posted April 10, 2008 Share Posted April 10, 2008 Sorry to hear about poor Gertie's diagnosis . At least you now know what the problem is. Sounds like you'll just have to make her remaining time as happy as you can - I hope it's not going to be too distressing for you . Did the vet say how long she may last? I suppose as you now know how to treat the problem and keep her comfortable, she could have quite a long life. I have to say I've never heard of this condition before (although I'm a fairly new chicken keeper too!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chanters Posted April 10, 2008 Share Posted April 10, 2008 Sorry to hear it wasn't positive news, it must be difficult knowing that there's nothing you can do to stop it from happening. Did he say how long roughly that Gertie might keep going for? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esther Posted April 10, 2008 Author Share Posted April 10, 2008 He didn't say how long. It just depends on how much she is able to digest, and I guess that is down to how much muscle is still working in her crop. He did say that she was already down to about a two or a three on the 0 - 6 scale that measures the muscle around her keel bone (the biggest is a capon that would be a 6). Her eggs have always been very small, and she is just showing the first signs of a break in her laying habbits (last egg was on Tuesday - still no sign of one from her at 12:30 today, otherwise she's been a 6-a-week girl since Easter Monday). What's intersesting is that a some websites seem to get sour crop, impacted crop and pendulous (or pendulum) crop muddled up, and it makes it much harder to know what is actually going on and what might help if you go on web advice alone. I can see that sour croup and impacted crop can sometimes be related, but this pendulous crop has nothing to do with impacted crop. The vet said he deals with impacted crop all the times so he difinitely knows what it is. Maybe what happens is that the impacted crop can cause problems with the muscles that can lead to pendulous crop? We will still try to massage her crop every day to see if we can help push the food through. Thank goodness the other two are absolutely fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Egluntyne Posted April 10, 2008 Share Posted April 10, 2008 Sorry to hear that it is not good news. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted April 10, 2008 Share Posted April 10, 2008 thank you for posting all that Esther. What an excellent vet! Give Gertie lots of TLC and you may keep her going for quite a while yet. I think then that Kelly has the same. She has a crop which doesn't work properly. It became impacted and as I said she now has maggots daily to keep the food moving through. Buit her crop is looking huge now, almost certainly pendulous and the maggots aren't making much difference. Therefore sour crop could definitely develop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
superjules Posted April 10, 2008 Share Posted April 10, 2008 Oh dear, I'm so sorry to hear she has such a dire diagnosis. You're right about all crop problems being lumped in together. In Practical Poultry Keeping by David Bland, it has sour crop and pendulous crop as the same thing and impacted crop as a separate condition, although it doesn't mention the crop weakness thing. I wish I could say something more positive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cazjohn Posted April 11, 2008 Share Posted April 11, 2008 Just to give a little bit of hope, one of my ex-batts has had a pendulous crop since we got her. She has always been tiny and has only just grown her feathers, she eats like mad then does some really violent head movements gets a massage and is fine again. If she gets really bad I give her olive oil with her favorite treats and a further massage. She has lived happily with us for a year now - when we first got her we figured she would be lucky to last the night! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
esther Posted April 14, 2008 Author Share Posted April 14, 2008 Thank you for that post. That's really good to hear. We really didn't think that Gertie was going to last the weekend - she looked so poorly on Thursday and Friday. But the massaging seems to help, and in the last couple of days she's perked up signifcantly. I think we will just take each day as it comes and give her as good a quality of life as we can for as long as we can. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Egluntyne Posted April 14, 2008 Share Posted April 14, 2008 Keep up the good work! It sounds as if it is doing the trick. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cazjohn Posted April 15, 2008 Share Posted April 15, 2008 Well done Esther x Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chickencam Posted April 15, 2008 Share Posted April 15, 2008 We had a Pepperpot one of our first hens who had a pendulous crop and the vet put her down because she wasn't thriving well, he said she was born with the condition which was why she was tiny, she had thin legs and was overall much smaller than the other 2. Knowing what I do now I may have tried to keep her but I wouldn't have wanted her to suffer and it would have been a problem if someone else less experienced was looking after them if we were away, we have to go away at quite short notice sometimes because we have elderly family who live quite a distance away Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kate0 Posted May 1, 2008 Share Posted May 1, 2008 Hi Esther, Only just joined this forum but you have solved a mystery for me. I've had an ex-batt for 18months now who has this pendulous crop problem. When it first started i took her to the vets who was stumped. After reading your posts i have tipped her upside down and cleared her out. Poor chicken - it must have been horrible for her. I will carry on clearing her out periodically and provide her with yoghurt. Hopefully yours will be as healthy as BoneyM has been. For the entire 18 months she has been very healthy - eating like a pig, laying well etc. Good luck to her and thanks for putting a name to her condition Kate Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
