Run Clips

[HennyPenny59]

One of my hens has just put her head to the ground, and a small amount of stringy brown/green fluid came up, she is otherwise looking completely normal. She is definitely at the bottom of the pecking order and tends to seriously gorge on her food when the others arn't looking, as they tend to push her away, so im wondering if its just a case of her being greedy and not anything wrong with her crop! Can this sort of thing happen to hens when they eat/drink too much?

[gongladosh]

Sounds like sour crop to me.

 

Try gently feeling her crop - my guess is that it'll be spongy and soft compared to yuor other hens' crops.

Her breath probs won't be too nice either. All she needs is some good bacteria powder from your local vet in her food for a few days. If it is sour crop, it is easy to treat but best not leave it too long in case any infections get in there.

[HennyPenny59]

Ive just felt all their crops, and thankfully, they all feel the same ... Just wondering what to do now?

[good_egg]

One of my girls did this - she scoffed a load of food then put her head down and seemed to overflow a bit. I panicked and felt crop, smelt breath etc but in the end I think she was just greedy and couldn't fit any more in. Put ACV in water and fed them all some probiotic yoghurt and bokashi bran mixed up but she was absolutely fine. Would keep an eye on and perhaps do some preventative steps and hopefully she will be good.

[ohcarolina]

Live Maggots every time as well for me. Completely gross but the hens love em even more than dried mealworms.

[HennyPenny59]

Thankyou everyone for your replies ...

 

They have all been getting unfiltered ACV, Herban and live Yoghurt regularly since ive had them, so hopefully if she has a problem that might be helping.

 

We moved them to our polytunnel for the winter months over the weekend, and im just wondering if she might have picked up something in there, as they are finding all sorts of little wrigglies and whatever else to munch ... I treated the soil in the tunnel with 2 applications of Bio-Dri 1 week before putting them all in.

 

Will be keeping a close eye on her tomorrow.

[gongladosh]

the other thing it could be of course is mashed-up slug - that can look similar. She may have had problems swallowing it so spat it out!

[HennyPenny59]

the other thing it could be of course is mashed-up slug - that can look similar. She may have had problems swallowing it so spat it out!

 

Bleugghhhh !! .... Thankyou gongladosh, I was eating my lunch when I read that

 

Anyway, when I let them all out this morning, I grabbed Ruby and felt her crop, and it was completely empty, and her appetite seems good today, so im hoping she had eaten and drank too much, or it was a slug

 

Im still going to keep a little eye on her though.