# Sour crop treatments?



## pmasonsmith (May 21, 2015)

Hello, I have some friends who are in Greece at the moment, they have found two baby pigeons about 17 days old. One has got a hard mass in its crop, its not vomiting but is apparently constantly drooling. Everywhere is closed because its a Sunday, they have some apple cider vinegar should they give that to the baby? is it sour crop? I have read lots of descriptions and causes but it seems many crop ailments cause and are described as sour crop. I have told them to feed either very liquid food or just water with sugar and some salt in. Can someone help please!


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

Tell them to look inside the beak and throat for yellow, cheesy-looking deposits and signs of inflammation. That would indicate "canker" or "trichomoniasis", which is a severe inflammatory response to a small, flagellating protozoa called a "trichomonad".

Metronidazole is a medication that they might be able to get over the counter for people (called "Flagyl" here in The States), but there are several others that are more for veterinary use: Carnidazole, Dimetridazole (have to be very careful with that one), Ronidazole...

Pidgey


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## pmasonsmith (May 21, 2015)

I asked them to check for canker when they first told me about the weak baby, they say they can't see anything, could it be really deep in the crop?


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

That "hard lump" is kinda' worrisome, yes.

Pidgey


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## Pidgey (May 20, 2005)

Can they send pictures?

Pidgey


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## pmasonsmith (May 21, 2015)

I will ask.


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## pmasonsmith (May 21, 2015)

hey have tried but the pictures are the wrong file for the computer or something, sadly the baby looks like it will die


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## AndreiS (Jul 28, 2013)

"Sour crop" is just a term refering to blockage or disfunction of crop. Is not a disease but a condition in which the passage of food from crop into gissard is slowed or stopped. It is called like that because when food remains in crop for several days, it ferments and causes some bad smell coming out from mouth.


What causes the crop problems can be diverse: enteritis (infection of the bowel, leading to incapacity of digesting hard food), ingestion of an object that gets stuck in crop, proventricullus (the corridor between crop and gissard) or gissard, a canker nodule (according to some websites). 

At baby pigeons, often is caused by eating too much and too fast, which leads to over-filling of the crop and incapacity of food to pass into gissard (because of pressure exercited by the volume of food on crop's walls). Possibly this happened to the babies your friends have found.





To deal with this problem, you have to do two things:

- to make the food circulate and pass intpo gissard
- to clear the candida that may have grown, as happens usually when there are crop disfunctions. Candida is a fungus from the category of yeasts, that grows rapidly in crop when food stagnates in crop.




So in order to make the food in the crop circulate, you need to put some liquid that will act like a lubricant between seeds. After introducing the liquid, you have to *gently* massage the crop on all sides and especially on the lower part, when is the proventricullus' opening. If you push the crop too much during massage, you can cause the liquid to come up into mouth, enter the respiratory tract (the respiratory vent is on the tongue) and suffocate the bird.

Some websites reccommend apple sauce for this, but as with any sweet thing, it can actually have the opposite effect, as candida grows rapidly when something sweet is present in crop.





Now about the candida: the medicine usually recommended against it on pigeon websites is nystatin, which may work at humans but at birds, from my experience, is completely useless.

From my experience, the only think to work against candida is water with higher concentration of acv. The higher the concentration, the more efficient, but if too high, the distress caused to bird may lead to more harm than benefits. Establishing the right concentration can be done by tests, during which you taste the solution yourself. If is distressful to you, giving the sensation of burnt, then you lower the concentration to the point of not being distressful, or a little lower, knowing that birds are more sensitive than humans.





But as birds will not drink something sour of their own, you have to give this solution using the crop eeding method. Here is a webpage about crop feeding, but the information is incomplete and partly wrong:

*http://www.pigeoncote.com/vet/feedbaby/feedbaby.html*

To complete the information about crop feeding, based on problems met by me when using this practice, I made a video (it is me in it) explaining and showing how actually the crop feeding has to be done. It is a potentially dangerous, harmful technique and the video explains the dangers, so I recommend to watch it:

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtHa5JDDhfY*


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

Does sound like canker with the lump and all. Is the lump in the neck or in the actual crop?


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## pmasonsmith (May 21, 2015)

Thank you AndreiS that's very helpful. And I don't know if the blockage is at the top or the bottom. They said it was there when they got it and the food they are feeding is very liquid.


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## AndreiS (Jul 28, 2013)

pmasonsmith said:


> Thank you AndreiS that's very helpful. And I don't know if the blockage is at the top or the bottom. They said it was there when they got it and the food they are feeding is very liquid.


If they feed liquid food, that can also help candida. When I feed the pigeons liquid food (which happens daily) I mix it with acv in order to prevent candida's growth. I do this following many unhappy experiences with birds I tried to rescue and died because of this yeast, which grows as fast as baker's yeast


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

Andrei, Nystatin works well with pigeons. If it hasn't worked for you, then maybe you are the one at fault. There you go, giving bad advice again. Stop saying these things. People will read this stuff and if they go by what you are saying, they could lose birds by not treating them with the proper things.


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

The bird probably has canker which is easily treated with Metronidazole. All this back and forth with not treating is just letting the poor thing die. Is the lump in the neck or throat, or in the crop? These are things you have to be able to tell us when you come on asking for help. Without knowing or seeing the bird, it is impossible to know what you are saying.


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## pmasonsmith (May 21, 2015)

Unfortunately the baby didn't make it, but I suppose it was too late even if the problem was diagnosed. The other baby is stronger and appears ok, but apparently has wet brown poos with no urea visible, is there any diseases which could cause this or is it the diet?
They have been feeding it sweet potato mash apparently but are now moving it onto chicken feed. Unfortunately theres no baby bird food available where they are.


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## pmasonsmith (May 21, 2015)

And I know I haven't seen the bird but they are unwilling to come on here and explain whats happening for whatever reason, I know they have probably got stuff wrong but I can't just buy a plane ticket to fly out to wherever an injured pigeon is, I wish I could but I don't have the money for that.


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

Of course he didn't make it. He needed medication. 

As far as the other bird, why don't they get in touch with a vet? It isn't going to help by going back and forth like this. Takes too long and nothing actually gets done.


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## cwebster (Dec 11, 2010)

Am sorry the bird didn't make it. Thank you for trying to figure out how to help your friend. How is the other bird doing?


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## pmasonsmith (May 21, 2015)

The baby has strange brown wet poos, but otherwise appears OK. It has been fed on a sweet potato mash until they got some chicken feed for it which they are feeding to it now as a wet food. Could the poo be because of the vegetable content as it was sweet potato food for a couple of days?


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## atete (May 18, 2012)

Jay3 said:


> Andrei, Nystatin works well with pigeons. If it hasn't worked for you, then maybe you are the one at fault. There you go, giving bad advice again. Stop saying these things. People will read this stuff and if they go by what you are saying, they could lose birds by not treating them with the proper things.


He is somewhat right. Nystatin is not absorbed into the system of the bird, it works only on surface. It's good only with the mild yeast infection or as a preventive when you are giving antibiotics. If the yeast infection is systematic, that is, the bird has it for several days and it spread throughout the body, Nystain won't help. Better get diflucan, because diflucan is absorbed by the body and spreads throughout.


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

atete said:


> He is somewhat right. Nystatin is not absorbed into the system of the bird, it works only on surface. It's good only with the mild yeast infection or as a preventive when you are giving antibiotics. If the yeast infection is systematic, that is, the bird has it for several days and it spread throughout the body, Nystain won't help. Better get diflucan, because diflucan is absorbed by the body and spreads throughout.


Yes, you have a good point, but I was referring to Andrei saying that it is useless. And I did have yeast in the digestive tract in mind. It works very well for that. So he was incorrect in what he said.


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## cwebster (Dec 11, 2010)

With Chloe the vet per her on fluconazole for yeast.


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

Depends on where it is.


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## AndreiS (Jul 28, 2013)

atete said:


> He is somewhat right. Nystatin is not absorbed into the system of the bird, it works only on surface. It's good only with the mild yeast infection or as a preventive when you are giving antibiotics. If the yeast infection is systematic, that is, the bird has it for several days and it spread throughout the body, Nystain won't help. Better get diflucan, because diflucan is absorbed by the body and spreads throughout.


Candida is a permanent problem with my birds, both because environment and because of use of strong (injectable) antibiotics. I tried endless times nystatin and see no difference, except that, being insoluble, it was etting on the bottom of the crop and worsen the things (we have no solution here, only tablets).


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## Jay3 (May 4, 2008)

Maybe fewer injectables would be better. And yes,they do work. What most use, and with good results.


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## pmasonsmith (May 21, 2015)

The second baby pigeon has got I'll, it has no appatite, but it hasn't got a lump in its crop like the first. They took it to a vet but it was a non avian vet who has given them antibiotics and something called aviomycine, which appears to be a cure all. The antibiotics are for its eye which became infected overnight and closed.


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