Chicken Sour Crop Prevention and Treatment

A chicken’s crop is just below its neck and at the center of its chest. This is the chicken’s food
storage and also where the first stage of digestion takes place. Often, a chicken eats more than
it could digest, when that happens the chicken develops a sour crop.

Detection and Symptoms

You would know if the chicken has sour crop if there is a bulge at the center of the chest of the
chicken (often bigger than a gulf ball) making the chicken very uncomfortable and moving the
head in a funny sort of way. When you open the beak, there is often a sour, foul smell. When
you touch the chickens crop and there is that hard yet squishy feeling, sour crop is setting in if it
is not yet impacted. What complicates this is that even when the chicken appears to be
lethargic; it will still try to eat even when the crop is full, then the chicken suffers more.

Prevention of Sour Crop

The crop is a vital organ in chicken that you have to keep a close watch on. As chickens are
likely to eat just about anything, sour crop usually occurs. When chickens feed, the crop will
normally bulge. But then a healthy chicken with a crop that is working well will have emptied
the crop overnight. If the crop has not, there is something wrong with digestion. To aid
digestion, the chicken feeds on grits. Grits are bought in any farm and poultry supply store, the
grit is then mixed with the chicken feed that aids digestion.
Normally, healthy foraging chickens will swallow small pebbles. They know what to select and
what is good for them. However if the chicken is not let out of the coop for long periods, they
miss this digestion aids. Another thing that is common to most animals is to eat a particular
grass for a particular illness. When the chicken has sour crop, the chicken feels the illness and
will forage for grass. This often complicates the sour crop, as long strands of grass are harder to
digest.
To prevent the onset of sour crop, check the chickens once in a while as the crops are likely to
be empty every morning before they feed.
Once a month, mix one teaspoon of apple cider vinegar to every liter of water in the chicken’s
water supply. When you do, buy the vinegar from farm shops and not those sold in the
supermarkets.

Treatment

Seek your vets advise

Chicken crop bras available to help empty the crop and aid recovery