Sour Crop
(I will first say that I am adding a photograph of a deceased chick and for those who do not feel they wish to view the chick should maybe just be cautious about continuing on. The following occurred on Sept. 13th)
I am writing this post regretfully, as we have lost a chick to what I am now certain is called “Sour crop”. We made it through the first night without predator damage to tractors and all chicks still inside. However, one chick was looking extremely ill. As the others ran to the food, this one simply sat where it was, and its breathing seemed agitated.
As I picked it up out of its pen, it did not make any fuss at all. For all of you who have ever picked up any chick before, you know that no fuss is not a good sign. Adam and I decided it was to be isolated and brought back into the barn (the original place we had the chicks) in attempts to rehabilitate it.
We made sure it had plenty of water and in case it was simply cold, we put the heat lamp on to try and aid in its recovery. Sadly, we did not figure out what the problem was until post mortem. It only took about an hour or so from when we moved the chick to when it passed.
Right before its death, we noticed that the poor thing looked like it was vomiting up a strange brown liquid. We had initial thought this to be some sort of respiratory illness due to the agitated breathing. However, once the bird was gone, we inspected it and found a rather large squishy area on its right chest area. We did not know if it was fluid in the chest, lungs or what. We hadn’t noticed the sack before and it was a shock to see it when we flipped the bird over.
After some fervent research, I came to the conclusion that our chick suffered from sour crop. Although it is treatable, it seems that we caught ourselves in the midst of it without having any clue as to what was happening. I truly am learning something new every.single.day. Possible causes for this to have happened include long grass and lack of grit consumption (both of these variables held true since the day before this happened).
So what is sour crop? Sour crop happens when previously consumed food does not pass through to the rest of the digestive system and begins to ferment. Typically a yeast type infection occurs. For some, you can save the bird from this, but you have to know what to look for and take action right away! Basically one has to massage the crop until the fluid is released ( essentially making the bird vomit). Once cleared, you can treat it with yogurt and/or apple cider vinegar (hello again ACV, our old friend).
Regretfully, we had no knowledge of what could have happened and what to look out for when it comes to illnesses. And so I’m writing this post as a warning, a lesson, and to reach out to others looking for what went wrong with their chicks with the knowledge that no, you are not alone.
And now I will add a picture of the deceased.
Aside from looking rather bare of feathers... the bird is on its back so you can see the area of the crop enlarged. It was completely soft to the touch. It is difficult to see anything else really, but hopefully this helps with an idea for what to look out for....lethargy, vomiting, and an enlarged crop.
