Severe pendulous crop

[Apags18]

This is a long post! Sorry but I have a lot of info to share!

I posted a couple months ago about my two year old black copper Maran hen, Truffles, and her battle with sour/pendulous crop. I had gotten some good advice and have tried just about everything. She has had sour crop since Dec 2024 and has been to the vet three times. Each time they have flushed out her crop and gotten her crop back down to a normal size, but within a couple hours her crop is huge again and full of fluid.

As of now we have tried isolation and keeping her from food and water. Putting apple cider vinegar in the water, garlic in the water, acidified copper sulfate in the water, monistat, nystatin/medistatin, crop massages with coconut oil, and sometimes we have had to vomit her due to it spewing out just by us picking her up because she so full!

I have tried three different crop bras and they have been too small or don’t seem to give her good support and she thrashes around and runs into the walls with it on. I know it can take some time but so far we’ve been trying for two month and she won’t accept it. I saw a crop bra pattern on this site that I may try and have my mom make and see if that one will work.

At this point I’m starting to lose hope. She is so full of fluid every day despite having been on nystatin for over a month now (and she was on it back in Jan). She’s doing this funny high step where she looks like she’s trying to kick the crop out of the way and wearing away the feathers under her crop. She has gone from 5.5 lbs to 4.9 lbs. and this last vet visit I saw a different vet than I had seen the previous two times and he jokingly (but not jokingly) told me it’s time to make chicken soup out of her. I was kind of pissed. They have pretty much told me I’m out of luck and should put her down. The first vet I had seen wasn’t available but this second vet who actually has more experience with chickens almost seemed like he thought I was wasting my time. I lost some confidence since being at that appointment last week.

She’s still eating, drinking, pooping, laying eggs, and mostly acting herself, but she’s not fighting us quite as much as she used to when we try and pick her up. She still seems to have a will to live so I don’t want to give up just yet.

Has anyone tried putting a tube down their chicken’s throat to remove the fluid or for flushes? I think that may be my only other option at this point. I’m still trying to work with her and the crop bra but haven’t been able to get her to keep it on. Any advice to welcomed!

We’ve lost several chickens over the years but this experience has just made me sad. She and her sister, Peanut Butter (PB), are bonded and I hate to think of them not having each other. So I’ve been just a little more emotional trying to save her than other hens we’ve lost in the past. I do know losing chickens are a part of chicken keeping. I’ve already had to go through I’ve lost 8 chickens over the years due to natural causes and predators, but this situation has just hit me differently, I guess. Again I appreciate any help or advice anyone can give! I’ll attach some pictures of her.

The first two pictures were more recent, about a day after her most recent crop flush, the next was her in a crate to keep her from eating and PB staying near her, and the last two pictures were from about a month ago.

 

[Eggcessive]

What are you feeding her? Does she have granite poultry grit available? Have you tried to get her crop bra put on where it will do it’s job to prevent her from over eating? @azygous has the good article on crop problems:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...w-to-know-which-one-youre-dealing-with.73607/
You may want to confine her so that she is not eating grass and other things that might compound her issue. Try limiting her diet to a very watery bit of chicken crumbles or pellets and soft egg, and not give any seeds or whole grains.

 

[azygous]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/making-a-crop-bra-for-a-hen-with-pendulous-crop.1464848/ Have you seen my pattern?

Your hen reminds me of the first time I ever dealt with a pendulous crop. I didn't recognize my hen had a problem until she was past the point of starvation and her crop was dragging on the ground. In my defense I was only a year into keeping chickens.

Yes, you can use a syringe to suck out the fluid, but it's very stressful and has only short term benefits. Feel your hen's keel bone. That will tell you if she's in starvation mode. It's really difficult to keep a victim of severe pendulous crop from starving as not enough food is making its way into the intestines.

This hen may need to be euthanized, not immediately, but your hen's condition may not be treatable.

 

[Apags18]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/making-a-crop-bra-for-a-hen-with-pendulous-crop.1464848/ Have you seen my pattern?

Your hen reminds me of the first time I ever dealt with a pendulous crop. I didn't recognize my hen had a problem until she was past the point of starvation and her crop was dragging on the ground. In my defense I was only a year into keeping chickens.

Yes, you can use a syringe to suck out the fluid, but it's very stressful and has only short term benefits. Feel your hen's keel bone. That will tell you if she's in starvation mode. It's really difficult to keep a victim of severe pendulous crop from starving as not enough food is making its way into the intestines.

This hen may need to be euthanized, not immediately, but your hen's condition may not be treatable.

I have recently come across this. We are going to try and make this.

I know the syringe and tube is stressful so that’s why I’ve hesitated doing it. I can tell by her keel bone that she is thinner than she used to be. I’ve been coming to the reality that euthanasia is most like going to need to happen, but because she’s been acting pretty much normal, I’m not sure it’s time yet (or maybe I’m just not yet ready). The fact that I caught this in Dec (must have been going on longer because it was already pendulous when I caught it) and nothing has worked in 3.5 months and even the vets have “jokingly” said it is time to make her into soup (didn’t really like that comment) makes me think there isn’t much else I can do that won’t be too stressful for her.

I do want to try that crop bra that you shared. The first bra I tried crisscrossed in the back by tying it but didn’t give her support and she never accepted it. I then got another one that was kind of like a halter around the neck and velcroed in the back and under her wings. Initially she wore it for about an hour but then started trying to get it off and never would accept it again. I think it may have been too much weight at the back of her neck. I did just recently come across your pattern and wanted to try it!

I appreciate your help!

 

[LaFleche]

A crop surgery to reduce the size and remove the excessive baggy skin could help.
But it might be very costly and she might have some unnoticed underlying disorder causing the problem, so even crop surgery might not help in the end.

Although I do understand that the vet's suggestion of "soup time" has put you off at first, it could be the best way to prevent her from going further downhill and suffering, and save you from a lot of headache and useless spending.

 

[Apags18]

A crop surgery to reduce the size and remove the excessive baggy skin could help.
But it might be very costly and she might have some unnoticed underlying disorder causing the problem, so even crop surgery might not help in the end.

Although I do understand that the vet's suggestion of "soup time" has put you off at first, it could be the best way to prevent her from going further downhill and suffering, and save you from a lot of headache and useless spending.

I did speak with the vet regarding the crop reduction surgery and he said it would be $500-$700! I love my chickens but that’s a bit steep! He said he’s performed that surgery 2-3 times in the past but has lost contact with those owners, so he doesn’t know the long term effects or how those chickens ended up doing. I also don’t like the idea of her going under full anesthesia and possibly not making it and still haven’t to pay all that money.

I think it was the way the vet came off, like I was just wasting his time. I do know many other people would have culled by this point, but our chickens are more like our pets and I do try as much as possible to help them. Being a nurse, I think it’s just my nature. I have a whole chicken clinic set up. But she’s still so active and feisty and still acting herself, so it’s hard for me to make that decision just yet. But my mom can sew,so when I’m back home this week we are going to try and make the crop bra from the pattern listed above. This will probably be our last effort. But I’ll be watching her closely. If she starts acting off or if she loses more weight then I know I’ll have to make that call

 

[Apags18]

So I wanted to post an update. Now my hen is still not out of the woods, but im slightly more optimistic. Also this is something that my family and I have tried and are seeing some success…this is not a cure, but I believe this is helping truffles.

So since no medications seemed to be helping the size of her crop or keep the sour crop away for longer than a week we decided to just go back to more natural remedies that we had around the house since I’ve already spent so much money on the hen . I decided to try some digestive enzymes and yogurt. For the past 3-4 days we’ve been making her a scrambled egg with plain yogurt and sprinkling a small amount of digestive enzyme powder from a capsule on the egg mixture after scrambling it. My mom is super into health and nutrition and takes black seed oil everyday and mentioned that we should add that too. So we put a few drops of the oil into the egg mixture as well. We’ve been feeding her this twice a day.

We also have started putting her in our brooder room n our barn that we use for baby chicks, at night. Her best friend peanut butter sleeps in there with her so she’s not alone and then they join the flock again in the morning. The reasoning for this is because I noticed when she was roosting on the bars at night, her crop was hanging low and I think contributing to it not emptying all the way. In the brooder room there is nowhere for her to roost so she has to sleep on the ground. Being on the ground kind of pushes her crop up a bit and, I think, helps it empty some more. I’m still working on our crop bra but she is not a fan of the bra, but hopefully soon. Just yesterday morning (and today) her crop is about half of the size it’s been since Dec!! I almost wanted to cry! I haven’t felt it so small since I figured out she had sour crop in Dec! Now it’s still getting a bit stretched out during the day as she’s eating, but we def see a difference in the size.

I started up the medistatin again (still have some left and since the size of her crop in the morning is much smaller I wanted to try this again and see if it will help this time) as I can still smell that sour smell on her breath but this has been a huge improvement! I know we are not out of the woods yet but hoping we are in the right direction. Someone on this site told me about a crop cocktail, with lemon juice, cayenne, ginger and cinnamon that helped them so I’m going to look that up and try that too.

I will update later with how things turn out and if she continues to improve. We will also be working on getting her to gain weight again as she’s lost some over the past few months.