[Zak the Rabbit]

One of my girls has sour crop. It was quite obvious when i went to see them this evening and a fair ammount of runny sludge came out when i tipped her, something she was not pleased with!

I gave her her own bowl of water and shes drinking, in fact not sure shes stopped yet! And she was pecking about if not eating as eagerly as usual.

Im going to get some yog for her tomorrow, but i think she may need stronger treatment. Theres no poultry specialist vets near me, i was wondering if someone can tell me the name of the treatment that a vet would give?

[Tazzy]

Hi Zak,

One of mine recently had this problem and this is how we dealt with it.

Each day, normally at the beginning of the day, we would hold her upside down, gently massage her crop and this foul (pardon the pun - it stinks!  ) fluid would come out. Don't hold her that way too long in case she has trouble breathing, but you may have to do this 2 or 3 times on each occasion.

Twice a day, after emptying her and in the evening, we gave her about 10ml of live yoghurt with some pulverised garlic (about a clove) in via a small syringe. Not the whole lot at one go as she will either choke, or as we found out, spit it right back at you!

We repeated this for about 4 - 5 days until her crop stopped sloshing and that did the trick. Good luck

[Zak the Rabbit]

cheers

ive fed her live yog before, but last time it wasnt nearly as bad. I 'emptied' her again tonight, it was like pouring out a stale teapot!

I gave her (and ultimately the other two) a bowl of feed mixed with yog yesterday, she ate a bit but i think not enough. I was hoping to not have to syringe it into her, but i think i will have to do that if shes not improved by tomorrow.

[Tazzy]

From the research we did it seems as though adding the garlic helps to clear it up. Not sure that it helped with her bad breath though 

[Zak the Rabbit]

In what form do you give her the garlic? (i love garlic myself!) Ive a jar of garlic granules i use in my cooking, wonder if soem of those would do? (no, its not garlic salt)

She wasnt much better yesterday, so after another session 'being mother' and pouring her out, i force fed her 5ml of yoghurt. This afternoon she was a bit perkier, pecking at a bit of apple. Shes in isolation tonight, see how she is in the morning

[Tazzy]

Hi Zak,

It needs to be fresh garlic which is pulverised (my wife used a mortar and pessell) and then added to the live yoghurt. We then put this into a syringe, and believe me, two pairs of hands are really useful here, before giving her 10ml twice a day. Mind you, a good few ml got spat back at us  so just a bit at a time is easiest. We were probably lucky if we got 5ml down at times. Good luck