Hen with bloated crop , seems full of water- help required please.

[recharger]

Hi all , iam from north east UK and this is my first time ever using a forum so if i've posted in the wrong place or anything please forgive me.
I've had my three ex bat hens for 7 mths now and all is going well, their all plump, well featherd, and laying every day.

Yesterday i noticed one hen quite "Bedraggled" and lathargic but i put it down to the horrible wet and windy wearther we're having.
However today i;ve noticed her crop is bloated and seems full of water. when i picked her up water came out of her mouth, i squeezed the crop gently and more came out. could this be "Sour crop" and if so how do i treat i , should i expell more of the fluid?

she's very droopy just sitting with her eyes shut, i;ve put a heat lamp on in the coop to see if that helps.

I have started to give them a couple of handfulls of mixed corn each day, could this be causing it. The other two seem fine.

 

[WI FarmChick]

I found this hope this helps.

Is it more hard or like a water balloon? Sour crop will be like a water balloon; whereas, an impacted crop is hard. "Doughy" kinda sounds normal, but that is a vague enough term that it can encompass the whole range of possible problems. Is her crop still full in the morning when she awakes?

If sour crop:
Massaging the crop in a downward motion. Hold all food from her and give her water with some apple cider vinegar (ACV) added to it (preferably ACV with mother, but regular will do). Make sure it is in plastic or glass as ACV corrodes metal and this can be toxic. A few times a day (as available anyway), give her an irrigation syringe full of 1/2 ACV - 1/2 water. This will take some patience as you can only give a little bit at a time to ensure she doesn't choke on it. I had a hen with sour crop that I would massage her crop while giving her the syringe. It would gurgle something nasty and she would have gnarly burps, but she started pushing up against my hand to keep massaging her crop and would open her beak for more of the ACV mixture, so it must've felt better. Sour crop is a yeast infection in the crop (hence hold food so it doesn't ferment more in there). The ACV kills the yeast. After a couple days you should see a difference and after 4 or so days, she should be near normal. Sour crop kills, so act quickly.

If an impacted crop:
Hold food. Give olive oil soaked bread (the bread is just to get the olive oil into the bird). Oil seems to be the best remedy as it slicks up the passage way to allow for food to pass through. It gets tougher it is long grass/hay stuck.

 

[recharger]

Thanks, i studied holistic theropies for a while so when i found out it was caused by yeast infection i had some idea as what to do ( in humans at any rate).

I feed her a couple of doses of a mixture of raw crushed garlic,to kill the yeast, and manuca honey to build her imune system and give her some energy.
Over the following day's i gave her natural " live" youghut mixed with chic crumbs, i gave this to all the hens as they love it and it stops them squabbling if they've all got the same food.
Her crop has stoped filling with fluid and she dos'nt seem to be getting worse. still weak and "droopy" so shell need building back up...

I think we were giving them too much stodgey, starchy foods like bread and pasta and not enough grit and course foods.

Thanks again and i'll keep you informed as to her progress.