The Mysterious Illness Involving Sour Crop
© 5/17/2020 Abby Black
Mary is a New Hampshire Red. She is the smallest of the flock but stands midway in the pecking order. She is tenacious, runs from human contact, and honks like a duck.

in late March, we found her with her tail tucked down and floofed into a ball. When we picked her up, brown liquid came from her mouth. Her crop was large and squishy. We concluded that it was sour crop.

We fed her egg cooked with coconut oil, to lubricate the crop. We mixed apple cider vinegar into her water to break down the yeast buildup. We gave her greek yogurt. We researched how to 'burp' a chicken; Hold her upside down and massage the crop, return her upright after ten seconds so she can't choke on the liquid. We set her in broad sunlight for hours at a time. We quarantined her inside the house.

By week two, nothing had changed. Mary had not laid a single egg. She was barely eating or drinking. She was lethargic. When she tried to preen, her head would only spasm around her back, not even making contact. She still had sour crop. She had lost weight. She was passing little to no feces. Her tail was still down. When we set her outside, she would stay in the nearest cover and stand there.

Week three. Mary's weight had dropped from around three pounds to about one. When held, we can feel her bones. There's almost no meat on her. She still has sour crop. She's still not eating or drinking, and hasn't laid an egg. Her feathers are raggedy because she hasn't preened. When she's not sleeping, she's dozing off. Her tail is still down. We're researching every chicken illness in the book, and none of the symptoms are matching up. It's like looking up a cold on WebMD.

When it appeared that the sour crop had gone down, we tried free ranging Mary with the other hens. It's obvious she's lost her hierarchy. Even the omega, Joan, is dishing disciplinary pecks. Sally, one of our two Barred Rocks, is especially harsh, going after Mary's behind. That sparks a new panic as we look up Sally's actions and diagnose Vent Pecking, which is addictive (and can spread to other chickens), most certainly will result in the victim's death via disembowelment, and mass cannibalism. Suddenly, Sally is being watched, too.

I got up extremely early to watch Sally interact with the others. Vent Pecking is not isolated to one victim. Sally is not a docile bird, often throwing her weight around. If I see Sally Vent Pecking, she's culled by nightfall.

Funnily enough, Sally doesn't peck once. Not a single time. It's like she knows that she's a goner if she makes one wrong move. Watching her for the next few days confirms that she does not Vent Peck.

It's now week number four. Mary is not looking good. We expect her to die in her sleep any day now. She eats a few bites of coconut oil eggs a day, is not interesting in scratching. We force feed her vinegar water by holding her beak in the bowl until some gets in her mouth and she automatically swallows. She still has sour crop, though not much is in it because she's starving. She is still lethargic, and barely weighs anything.

Mom orders a bottle of NutriDrench. From what's she read online, it's apparently a miracle medicine, capable of curing any chicken ailment. Its main ingredient is molassas. When it arrives, we quickly learn how to force feed. One of us holds Mary with one hand - It's extremely easy because she weighs slightly heavier than a phone - and lodges a finger in her beak to keep it open. The other person takes the fat syringe and squeezes a few dark brown drops. Mary has to reflexively swallow. We do this once a day for the next week.

Week five, and we have to confess that the forums are right. By day three, Mary was no longer lethargic and the sour crop was gone. By day four, she was jumping out of the quarantine box and roaming around the living room for us to trip over her. She's passing feces again. We start reintroducing her to the hens like day camp, leaving her in the run during the day and bringing her in at night. This is also in case she's lost the ability to regulate her own body temperature, as the nights are still dipping into the 30s/40s.

Now, she's honking at us. She puts up a fight when we force feed her NutriDench. She's still a bit slower than the others, and we still haven't gotten an egg from her, but she's reestablished herself in the pecking order. She no longer comes inside at night. Her tail is at full mast and she's preening again. We still have no idea if the sour crop was so severe or if she had secondary complications, but she's still alive and kicking, so we did our job.