Most keepers of backyard chickens do n’t have the luxury of admission to poultry veterinary surgeon to care for their feather friends . As a result , most education about chicken health , form and aesculapian issues come from the Poultry School of Hard Knocks .
We do our honest to care for our chickens by read domestic fowl maintenance volume , purge the internet for reliable information and compare notes with fellow keepers about things we see or feel — and things we trust we never see or sense . However , some lessons face themselves most circumstantially , and tribal chief among them is Crop 101 .
unexampled chicken - keeper ordinarily trip upon the harvest when they pick up a Gallus gallus and one of two thing hap : They ’re either convinced that they have find a healthy neoplasm , or they inadvertently gouge it , causing the bird to vomit .
So , what on the dot is the crop , where is it located , what does it do and what could possibly go wrong with it ?
Crop Function
The crop — also sometimes called the “ craw ” in the South — is an expansile , albeit weak , muscle underneath the skin situate more or less to the right field of a crybaby ’s breastbone at the bottom of its neck . It acts like a vest air hole for the impermanent storage of food .
When a chicken pick upfoodwith its beak , its lingua pushes the solid food to the back of its mouth into the esophagus , which is like a water slide from the mouth to the harvest . Once there , the food mingle with small amounts of good bacteria and lactic acid before moving farther along the digestive tract to be break down for more processing .
Why does a chicken have a limited solid food store pocket at all ? The resolution relates to the chicken ’s unenviable status as aprey creature . Chewing nutrient is meter - have , and the more sentence spent in open field of force or pastures foraging and mastication , the cracking the danger of being located and eat on by a predator .
The craw is part of a digestive system that lets chicken ingest intellectual nourishment quickly , stash it in this take - out container and break it down into smaller pieces after having reached a safe location . One might say the poulet is the original fast - food consumer .
What’s Normal? What’s Not?
It ’s important to know what a normal craw feels like when it ’s full and when it ’s empty , so you could identify a problem when there is one . An empty craw is not commonly tangible . To sense a normal , full crop , identify a bird that you know has eaten latterly and pick her up with her tail facing you and beak facing by from you . A biddy sit in a nest box is an easy object for this intent .
Next , reach around to the front of her breast , slightly to the right hand of the keel os . If you ca n’t feel anything , you ’re believably in the wrong spot . You might be too high up on the cervix .
A normal crop feels swollen and slimly firm after a hiss rust , but it shrinks as food is digested . It can be normal for some fowl ’ full craw to be visible . I find this to be unfeigned in my more rapacious flock member .
If you ever question whether a particular chicken ’s crop is emptying decent , remove food and water from the flock fellow member after they have gone to roost for the Nox . Before replacing the food and water first thing in the morning , experience the bird ’s harvest . It should be empty . If it ’s not empty , there is a problem .
Several abnormalities backyard Gallus gallus - steward can encounter and should be able to recognize are impacted , dour and cernuous crop .
Impacted Crop
After a normal dark of fast , if the crop feels full , hard or squishy like a water balloon in the morning , it might mean nutrient or other hempen fabric such as straw , long fibril of sess or string is stuck inside . This is a experimental condition sleep together as impacted craw .
set hen veterinary surgeon Mike Petrik advocate flush it with water to loosen the impaction , which can be a fiddling dodgy for the average backyard chicken - keeper , as there is a peril of forcing liquidity into the bird ’s airway . It ’s always best to consult a veterinarian for such a procedure .
Never seek to squeeze a volaille to regurgitate the message of an impacted harvest . If a mass of tangled stuff is lodged in it , grow a shuttlecock upside down will not dislodge the mass but will make the chicken sense worse .
With a severe impaction , the block can get swelling that ultimately suffocate the fowl , in which case surgical removal of the offending textile is necessary .
Sour Crop
sullen harvest , also known as thrush , harvest mycosis or a yeast infection , is a fungous infection . Bad intimation is generally the first mansion of this ; there should never be a zestful or foul odor coming from a poulet ’s nozzle .
Despite what you might have record or discover , a razz with sour crop should not be forced to regurgitate repeatedly by turn it upside down . Emptying the harvest ’s content of liquidity will not heal the fungous infection . Further , the number of vomiting can kill the bird if fluid have into her windpipe .
The treatment I would utilise is detail below . It involve cleaning and sanitizing the flock ’s bird feeder and drinker , sequestrate the stirred bird and level the crop with a specific Epsom salt solvent , follow by a specific course of antifungal medicament .
Sour Crop Treatment
[ This discussion was adapted , with permission , fromThe Chicken Health Handbook , second variant , by Gail Damerow . ]
Cu sulfate is commonly used to treat a chicken with saturnine crop , but an overdose is toxic . To avoid overdosing , first train a solvent by mixing 1⁄2 pound copper sulphate plus 1⁄2 cupful vinegar into 1⁄2 Imperial gallon of water system . understandably label this container as your stock solution . To each congius of the volaille ’s drinking water , add 1 tablespoon of line resolution .
First , affluent the bird ’s digestive system with Epsom salt .
Mix 1 teaspoon Epsom salt dissolve in 2 tablespoon of water . mildly pour or force out this solution down the bird ’s throat twice day by day for two or three solar day , or until the bird recovers .
Then feed as common , while using the stock solution to treat the chicken ’s crapulence water until the contagion is under control . During this meter avoid using any antibiotics , which will make the condition uncollectible . As a follow - up treatment , nystatin unwritten antifungal may be helpful , as may also a probiotic used to regenerate normal crop bacterium . ( Poultry suppliers offer probiotics phrase specifically for volaille ) .
Adding vinegar to the drinking H2O at the pace of 1 tablespoon per Imperial gallon — double the dose if the water is alkaline — can aid foreclose a recurrence of this contagion in two ways : by discouraging the growth of candida in the imbibing water and by helping the poulet ’s crop conserve a pH that encourage good bacteria to compete against candida and other potentially harmful microbes . Note that lend too little vinegar to the juicer can actively stimulate yeast growth .
Pendulous Crop
A crop that can no longer return to its resting sizing when emptied of food is called “ pendulous ” because it swings back and onward in front of the chick as it walks . This is rare in backyard wimp . I have seen it only once in my flock in nearly a decade . Because a nodding crop has lose snap , it does n’t empty its content in full , which often ensue in infections from the residual nutrient and water turn inside . shuttlecock with drooping craw can suffer dehydration , malnutrition , weight expiration and finally end .
Genetics are a wide suspected drive ; therefore , boo with this experimental condition should n’t be breed . Advanced historic period and binge eating might be predispose factors .
You ca n’t do much to forbid weeping crop , but you might extenuate its progression . Always ensure admittance to clean water and fresh feed during all daylight hours to avoid fanatic gorging . If a chicken with a pendulous crop progressively loses weight or its eyes become sunken , it has become dehydrated and malnourish , and it ’s sentence to consider terminal - of - life options .
Now that you ’re aware of the harvest ’s emplacement and function , you should be able-bodied to trouble - shoot a problem if one arises . Fortunately , crop dysfunction in backyard chickens that are care for by rights is almost as scarce as hen ’ teeth .
