Treating Sour Crop in Chickens

Last week a friend asked me to stop over and take a look at one of her hens. The poor thing had a full crop and it didn't seem to be going down overnight. Also, my friend told me the chicken had bad breath! Chickens don't really get bad breath so I knew there had to be something wrong with her crop and went over to take a look. Turns out her hen had sour crop. 

Today we're going to discuss what sour crop is in chickens? Is it common and how can I diagnose and treat it? 

Chickens are likely to eat just about anything, so it's not unusual for them to have crop problems. When chickens feed, the crop will fill up during the day and empty overnight. If the crop has not emptied, there is something wrong with digestion or a problem with what they're eating! 

Sour crop often starts by a blockage or slow emptying of the crop. Unfortunately, it often goes along with impacted crop and can cause pendulous crop!

Avian Influenza and backyard chickens

Updated for 2025

How weird did 2022 get? There had not been very much activity in the world of bird flu over the last few years and suddenly it was being detected in wild bird populations. Just to recap really quickly: ducks shot by hunters in South Carolina have tested positive for the Asian strain of H5N1 avian influenza. 

Wild birds can easily transmit this disease to pet chickens, ducks and other poultry so out of an abundance of caution, many chicken keepers in the area have completely locked down their birds. Since that first duck tested positive, 2 more then tested positive, one in close proximity to the first and the other in North Carolina.

Read more about those ducks here.

*sigh* Anyone else feel like 'here we go again'? At this point nobody is sure whether this is just a tiny issue that will resolve itself or if we're going to be facing a do-over of the 2015 turkey industry slaughter. Time will tell. 

Spoiler alert: it's 2025 now and H5N1 has been coming and going since and even though it seems like it's going away, it keeps coming back. Which means we as small farms or backyard chicken keepers need to be more vigilant than ever! 

Until we see exactly where we're going with this though, lets talk about some of the things we learned from past experiences with avian influenza and how to keep our flocks of chickens and other poultry safe. 

Lets start with the different types and behaviors of the virus. 

How to quarantine new chickens

I'm sure by now you've heard to quarantine new chickens before adding them to your existing flock, but what does that mean? How do you quarantine a chicken? Well, it's not unlike the stuff we've been doing with ourselves lately! lol You need to keep them away from the other chickens for a few weeks to make sure they don't have anything contagious.

Why quarantine chickens?

There are many diseases and parasites that chickens can have that aren't always visible immediately. Plus if you bought your new chickens at a poultry swap or farmers auction you have no way of knowing what they were exposed to at their previous home, or while out in public!

Because of the uncertainty of them being infected with anything, they'll need quarantined to protect your flock...and to give you time to get them healthy before moving them into the chicken coop.

Luckily the quarantine area doesn't have to be anything elaborate. A simple dog crate or large pet carrier will often do, or even a small bathroom that's rarely used. If you use a cage make sure it is somewhere the other chickens can't get to...like inside a garage or shed. 

You'll can use a small coop if it's far enough away from your current flock of chickens.

Treating pendulous crop in chickens

Today I want to talk about an issue that I have been dealing with in one of my hens. I noticed one day that this hens crop was much larger than usual and it seemed full even early in the morning. This is a condition called pendulous crop and it the sooner it is treated, the easier it is to treat.

The crop is the portion of a chickens digestive tract that holds their food before it moves down to the proventriculus and gizzard. As they eat during the day, the crop fills up. By bedtime the crop is pretty full. In fact, it is visible on most chickens at this point. Overnight as the food digests, the crop slowly empties. 

By morning the crop should be completely flat and undetectable under the feathers.

Pendulous crop can be identified by the crop not fully emptying as the chicken sleeps at night. In the morning the crop looks just as full as it does at night. The full crop can also have a wobbly appearance when the chicken runs. 

Pendulous crop is not painful for the chicken, but is causing damage to the muscles so it needs cared for as soon as possible.

Make your own coop cleaning dust mask

I've previously talked about how it's important to wear a dust mask when cleaning the chicken coop. It can prevent birders lung and histoplasmosis. Plus, who really who wants to breath in coop dust? It's mostly dried poop and feather dander! Up till this recent issue we're all going through, I never gave it a thought to just buying a box of masks any time I needed them...till there weren't any left! So I decided to make my own dust mask for cleaning my chicken coop.

Obviously a homemade mask is nowhere near the same as the ones you buy for hospital use, but they do keep the coop dust out of your nose and mouth very well. Since these masks are made of fabric, I really only need 1 or 2 since I can throw them in the washing machine between uses. This is definitely going to save me money on coop cleaning masks!

I happened to have a few medical style masks (albeit the cheap ones) so I decided to model my pattern after those. It's a very simple pattern and you can use almost any tightly woven fabric. All you need is fabric, some elastic and a sewing machine. 

Once again this is not a medically approved mask. If you want to make one of those you can find some amazing patterns online from more advanced sewers that have pockets for filters and all that. This is a very simple dust mask pattern made from one piece of fabric and 2 pieces of elastic. You can even stitch this by hand if you don't have a machine.

Sudden death in chickens

Has one of your chickens ever just died? Like, there was nothing wrong earlier, she didn't seem sick and she didn't get hurt but there she is suddenly just...dead? It happens more often than you would think. Today I want to talk about the unexplained reasons why a hen or rooster might just drop dead. Sudden death in chickens is very upsetting because not only have you lost your pet chicken, but now you're worried about the rest of the flock. 

So let's try to figure out what happened.

You open up the coop in the morning and there's one chicken laying on the floor instead of perched on the roost. How did you not see this coming? You see, chickens are pretty low on the food chain. Because of this they get pretty good at hiding their illnesses. You often can't tell they're sick until it's too late. 

Today I want to go over a postmortem assessment of sorts to try and determine what actually happened. We are not going to cut into the chicken for a necropsy (I'll save that for another post) but this is how I would asses a birds appearance to determine her cause of death.

MYO first aid salve for chickens

Lets recap what ya'll know about me real quick: I love chickens and I do everything as frugally as possible! Here's something you probably don't know though...I'm pretty deep into herbalism. In started in about 1993 and I have a whole other blog where I talk about that, but my easiest herbal healing salve is both cheap and can be used on chickens, other pets or people. Plus it's super easy to make. 

So today I want to give you my recipe for a wound 'salve' that can be used on chickens and talk you through making your own! While I have been using herbs on the humans in the household for years I only recently started using it on chickens. My friend Lisa over at Fresh Eggs Daily is an herbal genius as far as chicken care goes, and she inspired me to expand my herbal practices to chickens

This is the easiest and cheapest herbal wound treatment you can make. It can be used on cuts, scrapes, bug bites, plucked feathers and other minor skin irritations. It will relieve mild pain, itch and stings and it may help prevent infection.

Plus I picked an herb that literally grows everywhere so you definitely have access to it. In fact, you're probably familiar with it as a weed! The truth is that there are several herbs that can help to heal a wound. If you have some of the others, then add them in! I actually grow several herbs that are great for this purpose and I'll list other beneficial herbs down below plus a more complex recipe. 

Today though I wanted to go super simple with 2 ingredients, both chosen because you probably already have them.

Can chickens eat Cicadas?

A few years back, here in Pennsylvania we had the 17-year cicada invasion. My chicken's couldn't be happier. The first time I saw a chicken eat a cicada it was one of my tiniest Silkie hens. I actually thought she might have flung it away because it seemed too big for her to actually swallow until I watched her eat a second one almost immediately. I had to tell other chicken keepers this and the first thing they said was "Can chickens eat cicadas?"

Well, she did! But that made me start thinking if cicadas are okay for chickens to eat? Is there any harm chickens eating cicadas? Are they too big? Will chickens choke on a bug that big? 

I decided to look it up and found a surprising amount of information on the nutritional content of cicadas. The are high protein, low fat and have no carbs. 

Caring for sick chickens: the hospital cage

Caring for a sick chicken can be tricky. You want to keep the chicken separated in case she's contagious and also so she doesn't get picked on, but you don't want her to lose her space in the pecking order. Leaving her in with the rest of the flock though can be a bad move as chickens will often peck at wounds on other chickens. Plus you don't want an illness to spread through the whole flock. So what do you do with a hen when she's sick? Where do you put her while she's getting better?

You'll need a small hospital cage or 'sick bay' for your ill or injured chicken. 

Luckily it doesn't have to be anything elaborate. A simple dog crate or large pet carrier will often do, or even a small bathroom that's rarely used. Where do you put the chickens hospital crate though? Should it be inside the coop or in a different location entirely? Well, it depends on what's wrong with the chicken.

Is my hen broody?

As the weather warms up and the days get longer all the hens are starting to lay now. Once a hen starts laying eggs she may go broody and want to hatch those eggs. Or is she just acting weird? Maybe the hen is sick? How do you know if your hen is broody or not?

There are a couple different clues a hen will give you when she goes broody. Broody behavior is not like any other type of behavior but sometimes people confuse it with the hen being sick or just at the bottom of the pecking order.

A sick hen will sometimes hide in the nest box and not want to come out to eat, get treats or get attention. These are also hallmarks of the broody behavior.  

Luckily there are a few other behaviors that a broody hen is known for that will tell us whether she truly is broody or if there's something wrong with her.

Do chickens need feed supplements?

I was at the feed store today to pick up a specific feed for an experiment I'm doing. Since I'm looking for an unfamiliar product this required me to actually...well, LOOK! As I gazed down the 2 full isles of chicken feed and feed supplements I couldn't help but think "do we really need all these feed supplements for chickens?" The answer is No...no we do not. Most people will never need to feed their chickens vitamin supplements. 

Of course they wouldn't still be manufactured if people weren't buying and using them, so somebody is feeding them to their chickens. Should you?

Well, that kind of depends on what your chickens diet regularly looks like. In some very specific conditions, some of these supplements might be good for your chickens. Let's talk about that...

Scoby for chickens

This week I gave my chickens a scoby and I put a short video on instagram of a few of the hens eating it. I got some comments and messages because apparently not many people know that you can feed chickens a scoby! So, let's talk about that. A scoby is the gelatinous cellulose-based biofilm that forms at the top of a batch of kombucha. Kombucha is fermented sweet tea full of probiotics and other healthy stuff.

It's one of those crunchy-mama, hippie superfoods that's so popular right now. A lot of people make it at home since it's so expensive in single serve bottles.

Every time you make a new batch of kombucha, a new scoby forms. Most of us store these extras all in a big jar called a scoby hotel. Well, when the hotel gets full something needs done with them and since they are loaded with probiotics you hate for them to go to waste. 

Some people eat them in different ways and they also give them to their dogs and livestock. Nope, I'm not the only one who does this!

Can chickens get bed bugs?

If you're like me, you took one look at the question above and said a resounding "No!" People can't get chicken lice and chickens can't get people bugs, right? Then I did some sleuthing around and found out that chickens can in fact get bed bugs. That was unexpected! We know chickens can get mites, lice and even fleas and ticks...but bed bugs? It just didn't sound right. Unfortunately it's true. In fact, bed bugs are a huge problem in commercial poultry farms.

As chicken keepers we understand that from predators to parasites, everything likes chicken! The best thing we can do for our chickens is to arm ourselves with the knowledge on how to deal with these issues. When I found out that chicken coops can be swarming with bed bugs, I needed to know exactly what I could do if this ever happened at my farm.

How to raise the Omega-3 content of hens eggs

Last week I posted a recipe for easy suet cakes for chickens. One of the ingredients I used was  flax seeds. I received several emails asking about flax seeds and why I feed them to my chickens...so I decided to answer that question publicly. I've been feeding flax seeds to my chickens for about 6 years now and I started adding flax to their feed to increase the Omega-3 content of their eggs.

I eat flax seeds on a daily basis because they are high in protein, fiber, omega-3s and antioxidants. After I started adding flax seeds to my diet I noticed the 'expensive' eggs in the store with labels that touted their Omega-3 content. 

Since the nutrition of a hens egg is a direct result of their diet, I concluded that it had to be that chickens diet which added the Omega-3s to the eggs. 

I had recently found a great deal on a huge bag of flax seeds so since I had them on hand I started adding flax seeds to my chickens diet. I mix them into their scratch grains, add them to treats and bake them into flock blocks. 

The chickens seem to like them and I felt like I was adding something nutritious to their diet.  

How common is chicken illness?

Today's discussion comes to us courtesy of a friend who was going to get chickens but then changed her mind. In doing some research she had found countless websites discussing the various illnesses that chickens can get. There are a lot of people out there writing about chickens, and many of us talk about chicken illness and disease. So many in fact that my friend was sure she was going to be battling illness in her flock from day 1! This brought up the question "How often do chickens get sick?"

Thankfully, my chickens don't get sick nearly as often as she seemed to think they would! Is my flock abnormally healthy though? In order to determine the answer to that I turned to a group of chicken owners and asked 6,000 of them a simple question: How long have you had chickens and what illnesses have you dealt with in your flock?

Feeding a sick chicken

What do you feed a sick chicken? When a chicken is ill the food they eat needs to fuel their recovery. They need extra vitamins and nutrients, plus lots of hydration which can be really hard to get into them if they've lost their appetite because of illness. I have a few special foods that I give to my sick chickens, especially if they are turning their beaks up at the regular feed.

That doesn't always happen though. Sometimes when a chicken is sick she will still have a good appetite. In these cases you can supplement her regular feed a little bit, but make sure she has unlimited access to her normal feed so she can eat as much as she wants. Layer feed is nutritionally complete and even though the foods I have listed below are high nutrition...they really shouldn't take the place of her regular feed.

Unfortunately many times a chicken that is battling an illness will lose her appetite and we must try to entice her to eat. In this case you want every bite of food to count. I've compiled a list of high nutrition foods that chickens love along with all the benefits of feeding these foods to a sick chicken.

15+ Signs of chicken illness

People that raise chickens tend to spend a lot of time watching them. They're pretty entertaining after all! We even have a name for our chicken watching, we call it "Chicken TV". The great thing about chicken watching is that by observing your flock when they are healthy, you can quickly identify a problem when your chickens are showing symptoms of illness.

There are lots of signs that will indicate that your chicken is sick. Sometimes it's the chicken themselves, like their stance or behavior. Other times you need to check their droppings or watch their eating habits to determine illness in your flock.

It can be tricky to know when a chicken first gets sick as they often hide it very well.

Caring for a chicken with cross beak

Unfortunately I had a chick with cross beak hatch a few weeks ago. This has happened a few times over the years, but this is actually the first time I've ever seen it in a guinea! Cross beak is when the bottom and top beaks do not align properly. This can cause problems for the chick but with proper care and attention she may still be able to live a long and happy life.

Cross beak, also known as scissor beak, is a lateral beak deviation. Meaning the bottom beak deviates to the side and the top beak remains in it's correct position. Or vice versa, actually.

It could happen either way, though in my experience the top beak is generally the one in the correct position.

According to Poultry DVM Beak deformities occur somewhat commonly in chickens, and can be congenital or acquired. They can be caused by a number of different factors, including poor diet, genetics, trauma/injury, disease/parasites, tumor growth, and inappropriate incubation technique.

Scissor beak can vary in it's severity with the mildest cases being barely noticeable. Moderate cases can be managed with proper feeding and trimming of the beak to help it align more closely. Severe cases can require hand feeding and many chicken owners chose to cull in these situations.

Should you cull your flock in fall?

As fall approaches, hens that are 2 years old or older slow down on egg production. Many farmers and homesteaders chose to cull old or unproductive hens from their flock before winter. By culling the flock in fall, they cut their feed costs over the winter. 

This makes a lot of sense if your main reason for having chickens is to get farm fresh eggs.

However, not everyone runs their flock like a farmer. Many chicken keepers are perfectly happy letting their flock live out it's natural life. I have one chicken that's 9 & 1/2 years old, so I can certainly understand that sentiment!

Chickens can live pretty long though, so if you don't intend to let them live out their natural lives, culling before winter may be a good idea for you.

What is culling? 

To cull the flock means to reduce its population selectively, removing animals by choice. Remove does not always mean butcher or kill, but it can. Many people cull their flock by selling off chickens they decide they no longer need. 

I have posts about poultry swaps, poultry auctions and my ridiculously honest craigslist ads as these are all ways I have used to cull my flock.

Treating coccidiosis in chicks

Coccidiosis is one of those diseases that strikes fear into the heart of even the most experienced chicken keeper. When contracted by chicks, coccidiosis can wipe out a whole brooder full in just a few days. Coccidiosis moves quickly and is deadly. Luckily, it's also easy to prevent and treat.

Coccidiosis medication is readily available and is water soluble, so it's simple to treat the whole flock at once. (which is absolutely necessary!)

Treating coccidiosis in chicks is as simple as adding the medication to their drinking water for a few days and keeping their brooder clean.

Before we get to the treatment of coccidiosis though, let's talk about what it is and what the symptoms are.

Coccidiosis is a parasitic disease of the intestinal tract of animals caused by coccidian protozoa. The disease spreads from one animal to another by contact with infected feces or ingestion of infected tissue. Site.