The trouble with Astro…
…Started in January, after a day of freeranging. We found her puffed up and lethargic in the corner of the coop.
I started to run a basic diagnostic and tipped her over to check her vent. All clear. But while she was upside-down, she puked on me. Not just chicken puke. Nasty, sour, stinky fowl vomit.
According to the user forum of backyardchickens.com, Astro had sour crop, a condidtion in which her crop – the pouch on the side of a chicken’s neck that helps them grind and process food – was impacted and the food bits stuck inside were starting to ferment.
The vet at Seattle Bird & Exoctic clinic confirmed the diagnosis with a few expensive tests and flushings and ultimately treated it with antibiotics.
That was the first of many trips to the vet. Astro is a bunk chicken and in the last few months, she had another impacted crop, suffered a bacterial infection and was egg bound. The latter from a chicken who we had no proof had actually laid an egg. She developed a taste for them though. She would wait for another one of the girls to make an announcement of her morning’s accomplishment, then promptly march up to the hen house to sample.
Our patience with Astro –and our willingness to make any more trips to the vet – wore thin recently. She moved on to a new home. It’s a “closed adoption” so we don’t know how’s she doing. We can bet she didn’t become a real chicken burrito.
