I am wondering what this might be. The chicken is acting fine. She's not even a year old. She lives in my back yard and it's my first time having pet chickens. We're in a West coast environment. I have a coop with 4 chickens. The one with the lump is a Rhode Island Red and the lump is a little lopsided and about the size of her regular chest. It makes her look like she has a lopsided chest. What kinds of things could this be? How many options are there to addressing such problems? Anyone have any ideas? I will probably call the vet soon to see what they say. Thanks!
Growing lump on my pet chicken's chest
I have a three year old lopsided chicken, but she seems (otherwise) fine. They do get abscesses (sp?) from wounds and can also get tumors. Hope she's okay.
I've noticed that after mine act like pigs and gobble up a lot of food all at once, they look all lopsided in the breast area.
I'm not sure, maybe someone who knows more about chicken anatomy can tell us, but would that be a full crop ?
Same with my chickens. When they eat as pig.... it become lump on breast area later it will go away as foods being ingested.
Yup, what you folks are describing is a very full crop! They are off center and sort of weird looking at times.
For some reason, some chickens seem to have more noticable crops than others. I had a silkie with an enormous one.
a crop is like a little bag that birds have. they eat little rocks and sand which goes into the crop and then when they eat food, it goes there too, to grind it up. Since chickens don't have teeth, this helps make it easier to digest different things, like grain.
Here are some ways to tell.
1. is it smaller in the morning, before she has eaten? (crop)
2. If she is eating grain, and you rub it, does it feel like it is full of something mushy and grainy? (crop)
3. Is it hard, or squishy? ( squishier is a crop)
4. Does she seem fine? acting normal? (crop)
You can get an impacted crop, but that is pretty serious, and you should be able to tell that the gal isn't feeling well. She will probably die if that is the case, so if this is an ongoing thing, i wouldn't worry about it. I think she just has a big old crop...the better to digest with!