Sour Crop Home Treatment | Step by Step Instructions

Below I outline the sour crop home treatment I used for 100% recovery in chickens. It is always best to consult your local veterinarian for the best cure. However, if a vet visit doesn’t fit within your budget, this sour crop home treatment has given me great results so far. Click here to see our YouTube video directions for this sour crop home treatment.

Sour Crop Home Treatment

Ugh, sour crop is the worst. Maybe not the worst, but after having to put one hen down, we sure don’t look upon this condition fondly. After I failed to cure our first hen with sour crop, I was absolutely determined to develop a sour crop home treatment with our new chick.

What is Sour Crop?

In order to effectively administer a sour crop home treatment, it is essential that we understand what it is. Sour crop is a yeast infection, or Candidiasis in the chicken’s crop. The yeast basically invades your chicken’s crop, where food is broken down by grit before passing on to the gizzard for further digestion. As the yeast flourishes, it multiplies and releases carbon dioxide, causing swelling & distention of the crop.

The real issue is caused by the fact that the yeast consumes the food the chicken eats, before it can be broken down and used by the chicken itself. Therefore, although appearing to have a “full belly”, the infection is actually slowly starving the chicken. The chicken will continue to eat obsessively in an effort to stave off hunger, but doing so only causes the bacterial bloom to worsen.

Why is this Sour Crop Home Treatment Effective?

Now that we know what causes sour crop, we can understand why this sour crop home treatment is effective. The goal is to starve the yeast (or bacterial bloom) and allow the microorganism balance in the crop to return to normal. By withholding sugar and slowly introducing protein & fat rich foods back into the diet, we can effectively reduce the yeast population and provide energy to the chicken.

Never, Ever Ignore Sour Crop

Unfortunately I didn’t act right away with our first chicken with sour crop. I couldn’t bare to separate her from the flock, and as a result, her sour crop turned into pendulous crop.

Pendulous crop occurs when chronic sour crop causes the muscles around the crop to become stretched out over time, fatally altering the chicken’s digestive anatomy.

When the pendulous crop hangs below the gizzard, gravity can no longer move food from the crop to the gizzard. While some chicken owners use a “crop bra” to extend the lifespan of chickens with pendulous crop, there is no cure. Unlike the sour crop home treatment below, the chicken will likely still starve to death over time. This is why it is essential to monitor your chickens, and treat sour crop in chickens as soon as it is detected.

A Simple, Organic Sour Crop Home Treatment

The keys to a successful sour crop home treatment are frequent administration and time. Do not rush to reintroduce your chicken back to the flock. Sour crop is often a byproduct of impacted crop, which can occur when chickens stuff themselves with too much/large food. It is important to slowly reintroduce your chicken to food while he/she comes out of a state starvation in order to prevent the cycle from occurring all over again. In order to prevent sour crop from coming back, the chicken needs to be slowly reintroduced to eating with…

• Foods with probiotics — natural keifer or greek yogurt WITHOUT sweetener
• Foods low/free of sugar (no grains, corn, etc.) and high in protein (such as scrambled eggs)
• Small amounts, frequently, to prevent buildup of food for yeast to consume
• Garlic water is said to work wonders for sour crop, and has helped us immensely

Sour Crop Home Treatment Instructions

Here are the sour crop home treatment steps I took to treat sour crop in our 8 week old chick. By day 3 or so, the chicken’s crop should be completely empty in the morning. If not, you may wish to consider “vomiting” your chicken, although this technique does carry risks and should be avoided if at all possible. With early detection, it shouldn’t be necessary.

If your chicken’s crop isn’t empty by the morning on day 3, abstain from advancing treatment with higher food volumes until it the crop is able to empty completely. Always make sure your chicken has access to grit when you begin to reintroduce solid foods. Remember: if your chicken does not have access to food overnight and the crop is not empty by morning, it means the yeast infection is absolutely still active, and you shouldn’t advance further in the sour crop home treatment process.

1. Early detection is the key to success! Isolate chicken as soon as sour crop is detected.
2. Day 1: Isolate chicken from flock. Administer garlic water with syringe every 2-3 hours. No food for 24 hours.
3. Day 2: Administer small amounts of greek yogurt with syringe every 2-3 hours. Continue to administer garlic water every 2-3 hours.
4. Day 3: Feed larger amounts of greek yogurt every 2-3 hours. If crop is able to empty completely, you may consider adding scrambled eggs to the yogurt. Continue to administer garlic water every 2-3 hours.
5. Day 4: Feed greek yogurt/scrambled egg mixture in small amounts every 2-3 hours. Continue to administer garlic water every 2-3 hours.
6. Day 5: Feed mixture of greek yogurt/scrambled eggs/oatmeal in moderate amounts every 3-4 hours or so. Check between feedings to make sure the crop is emptying between feedings. Continue to administer garlic water every 3-4 hours.
7. Day 5/6: Add small amounts of  chicken feed to the mixture of greek yogurt/scrambled eggs/oatmeal, and feed every 3-4 hours in moderate volume. Make sure crop is emptying completely between feedings. If not, return to treatment for Day 3. Continue to administer garlic water every 3-4 hours.
8. Days 5-7: Reduce the amount of soft food, and feed chicken MODERATE amounts of chicken feed every 3-4 hours, making sure crop empties between each feeding. This is the step where your chicken is likely to overstuff with sugar-rich food and get another yeast infection, so make sure to moderate what she eats. Continue to administer garlic water every 3-4 hours.
9. Days 6-7: Allow your chicken free access to chicken food all day, and remove it before bed. If her crop is completely empty the next morning, move on to the next step. Continue to administer garlic water every 3-4 hours.
10. Day 7: Return your chicken to the flock. Administer garlic water roughly every 3-4 hours. Do not free range or feed produce treats, as your chicken is likely to stuff herself with the new variety of food, and start the process all over.
11. Day 8: Slowly reintroduce free ranging or treats in small amounts. Think 5 minutes one day, 10 the next, and so on. After slowly working your chicken back into a normal routine, she should be less likely to trigger another round of sour crop right away.

Sour Crop Home Treatment & Prevention

Of course, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Garlic water is said to have many beneficial properties for chickens. So if you are able, feeding garlic water to your chickens year-round may help prevent sour crop. There is some debate as to whether ACV helps or worsens sour crop, so I do not use it in my sour crop home treatment. Chickens are hard to control, so especially if you free range, there is no real way to prevent it 100%. But by taking steps to prevent & treat impacted crop (which frequently leads to sour crop), it will lessen your workload later.

I hope this sour crop home treatment is helpful for you. Of course, I am not a veterinarian and I cannot guarantee its efficacy or safety. However, it worked beautifully for our 8 week chick with sour crop, and I wish I’d taken these steps with our previous girl.

Do you have any sour crop home treatment questions or tips? If so, just comment below — we can all learn from each other!

Disclaimer: We’re not professionals or experts on this topic, so all we can do is share our own personal experience in hopes that it helps you in your journey! We always recommend consulting with the pros directly.