My darling Pomona (lavender Orpington hen, a little over two years old) has been having crop issues that we've been observing for two weeks, with a vet visit in between. We don't know what's going on, and would appreciate some guidance. I've written all our observations for background, but bolded and made a larger font size the days that felt most important to the issue.
General Notes
Wednesday, April 21, The First Day
Thursday, April 22
General Notes
- She has been laying throughout this time, skipping a day here and there as is normal for her. She's continued pooping, as well. Perhaps it's my worry, but it mostly has seemed like her poops have been smaller than before. They've been regular, though.
- We've been keeping them inside since this behavior started, so her diet has been exclusively her normal feed (an all flock, pelleted feed with 18% protein), and mealworms/bird seed as occasional treats. She has oyster shell and grit available in dispensers at all times. She has water, grit, oyster shell and food available at all times in the run, but has no access to anything other than pine shavings and sand (from the poop board) in the coop. They have an automatic door, so they are out in the run from literally dawn to dusk, when they tuck themselves in at night.
- It has been incredibly wet outside throughout these two weeks. It's been raining almost every day. Their run is compressed mud at this point. There is water that's coming through the plywood in their coop b/c the walls are so saturated with water, but there aren't leaks or drafts.
- She is a very big chicken and has always really stuffed herself very full throughout the day. My partner and I have always joked that she would need to wear a crop bra in her old ladyhood.
Wednesday, April 21, The First Day
- We noticed she was "swallowing" weirdly. She was doing crop adjustments, but it wasn't the normal way she did them. It looked exactly like the Wyandotte in this video. The swallowing motion was frequent.
- We decided to get up before dawn the next day and see if she'd sorted out her problem on her own.
Thursday, April 22
- When we felt her crop in the morning, it was full of stuff. Not hard or ballooned, but there was graininess in there. I couldn't tell if it was grit or feed pellets.
- I called and made a vet visit for Saturday morning.
- She was doing the gulping, swallowing motion all day.
- We were trying to give her massages, but we didn't know what we were doing and it didn't seem to be making a difference.
- We woke up before dawn again and felt her crop on the roost bar again. It felt like there was twice as much graininess/material in there as had been there the previous day.
- A second chicken, Malachite (almost one-year-old Favaucana/Easter Egger) had material in her crop. She did not behave weirdly at all during the day.
- Pomona, the chicken whom this post is about, continued to do the gulping, swallowing motion.
- We saw her have one green poop, and they have been nowhere near grass or leafy kitchen scraps for a couple of days. [All other poops have been in the medium brown to dark brown range.]
- (Malachite also had twice the amount of material in her crop than she'd had the day before, so we brought her with us to the vet. The vet was totally unconcerned, and her crop was back to being empty and flat in the morning on Sunday, when a second Favaucana year-old had a "half full" crop in the morning.)
- Pomona's crop now felt totally ballooned up. Like, there was still a "full amount" of material in there, but now it felt full of water, too.
- Pomona weighed 8.8185 pounds at the visit.
- Our vet was totally unconcerned about Pomona, OR alternatively thought she was dying of Marek's. It was pretty frustrating, b/c she wasn't listening to our observations about this not being normal for Pomona. She did take an X-ray, and apparently there was some material in there, but not enough to concern her. There was no visible impaction, just like there hadn't ever been a hard lump we could feel.
- The vet administered subcutaneous fluids in Po's thigh and sent us home. She said to feed her a teaspoon of oil every day to try and lubricate whatever the problem might be. She said to check back in if nothing changed in a week.
- We tried to give our chicken olive oil using some child syringes, and it didn't work at all.
- We ordered a crop bra from the Etsy shop AposBeach that night. It's this shape/design below.
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- We continued observing Pomona. We weren't able to get up every morning to feel her crop, but it still looked really big and she continued to do the gulping adjustments.
- We tried to pour olive oil all over some mealworms or birdseed mix that we reserve for treats and freeze that. This was a lot more successful in getting olive oil into the birds, but it also meant that the entire flock participated and we had no way to measure how much olive oil Pomona was actually ingesting.
- Pomona woke up with an insanely large crop today. It was massive and squishy. My partner saw her regurgitate liquid twice when he saw her bend down to eat the solid olive oil and bugs.
- Later in the morning, I went out and just hung out with them a little. I also saw her regurgitate twice when she was pecking around on the ground. Her "vomit" was a creamy, tan color and really mucusy-looking. There were one or two pellets of food in there. One of the pullets was absolutely obsessed with trying to eat the vomit, even when I had stamped it into the mucky ground. It was super distressing to me, but I figured I'd mention it in case someone here recognized that behavior.
- I could also hear a little gurgling sound before she "vomited," and generally while she was making her normal, super-loud "roaring" noises.
- The two vets who see chickens around me on a non-emergency basis were both unavailable until May 4.
- The crop bra arrived that afternoon, and we installed it on her in the nighttime.
- We stopped giving them olive oil after the bra arrived.
- Things seemed to be improving with the bra, and there were some immediate changes as well as some slow changes.
- Her crop was no longer hugely ballooned in the morning, and we have not seen her regurgitate since that scary Thursday. She actually improved so much that we cancelled our May 4 vet visit because she really seemed to be on the mend.
- She's managed to shift or rotate the bra around a few times, likely during dust baths. Her crop has never fallen out the side, but it has been held up by the less supportive edge rather than the main bib area.
- (Wednesday and Thursday we were trying to deal with one of the younger hens being broody and trying to break her of it. Pomona was striking at the broody hen, just in the same way she'd previously struck at a different member of the flock who went broody. All was normal, behaviorally.)
- We took the bra completely off on Wednesday during the late morning or early afternoon, and her crop looked like it was hanging very low again. We wanted to give her a day to properly preen and dust bathe without her bra on. We put it back on her on Wednesday night after she'd already gone to roost so it could help her digest.
- On Thursday, we noticed that she'd shifted her bra again so it was twisted. I tried to shift it on her without her taking it off during the day, but I wasn't able to get it into the right position. We decided to take it off and on again to reset the position in the night.
- With the bra on, it has been hard to feel if I'm feeling a mass of fluffy feathers or a semi-full crop.
- Right before dawn, I unhooked the velcro closure and redid it so that the bra was in the right position. I was a little unsatisfied with how the adjustment went. It felt like I'd left enough space to sneak my fingers under the strap like I should, but there was something weird about where the hem on the bra was sitting under her crop against her body. I couldn't see well in the low light.
- Pomona started to do the gulping adjustments again. I wasn't sure what to do. We let them out into the run a little early, and I had a feeling that she wasn't really acting like herself. There's nothing specific I can point to, though.
- Later in the morning, around 10 AM, we checked on her again and I'm really concerned now. Here are the concerning behaviors.
- Firstly, she didn't come up to greet us when we came to the door. Every chicken always runs up to the door unless they're currently laying. We opened the coop and expected to see both Pomona and the other missing hen both laying, but only the other hen was in there. I looked, and Pomona was just standing in the middle of the under-the-coop area. It was raining, but that has never prevented any of them from coming outside when we're in the run with them.
- We offered her some treats, and she didn't come. This is completely unlike her. She is so motivated by treats that every other day of her life I would feel confident saying that she'd scale a mountain for a single seed. The other non-laying chickens wanted the seeds with their same amount of normal gusto. She was moving around under the coop, but she didn't want to come out to see us or eat treats.
- We opened the door and let them outside for the first time in over two weeks to try and tempt her out. She did eventually come outside. She didn't rush the door, though. She normally is incredibly talkative and really "roars" to be let outside. She has been quiet all morning.
- We picked her up when we were outside, and her crop is really, really big again. It's soft, too. All the other chickens have crops that feel normal. I undid the velcro and loosened it up considerably. When I was trying to give her some gentle massages, I inadvertently burped her. Gas escaped out of her beak, and her crop volume did seem to reduce after that. I continued to massage and another "burp" escaped.
- My partner tried to smell her breath, but she just smelled like a chicken to him. He wasn't able to sense any rotten, foul, or beer-like smell. (I don't have a sense of smell at all, so I can't help here.)
- When we put them away, we normally call them and throw some treats into the run. All the other chickens behaved as normal, coming when called and the barreling after the treats. Pomona ignored us and had to be shepherded back inside, again forfeiting a moment of treats.
