Dealing with and Treating Chicken Crop

Oh my goodness. I don't know if I mentioned it already, but I'm a chicken mama! We have 4 older hens, and one little one that we got back in March. Well yesterday I went to pick up Baby, our baby chick, and noticed something strange. There was a huge bubble protruding from her neck that was firm to the touch. I automatically started wondering "When did this appear?" and "What the heck is it?" "Is it a tumor?"  Like many folks today, I quickly went to Google to see what I could find. Turns out she had chicken crop. Say what? 

We've had chickens for years and honestly, we never had this issue so it was totally new situation for me. The crop is a holding area sort to speak during digestion, located in  their chest area. Apparently it's common in large hybrid chickens like her, because of their big appetite. Common signs are very little poop, and lack of appetite. I read different articles about giving them oil soaked bread, feeding only yogurt, massaging the area, feeding maggots to help break down impacted food, and seeing a vet for possible surgery to remove.

(Photo credit: http://www.pocketfarm.co.uk/impacted-crop-and-sour-crop/)

 I quickly thought back to when the many babies I've cared for had tummy issues, like constipation, and how I would gently massage their back to help relieve the situation. So, I opted to try massaging it out first for several minutes. While I was doing that, I had the kids remove her food from her cage (she's separate from the bigger chickens at the moment), leaving her with only water to make sure she didn't add more food to the problem. Shortly after massaging her crop, I already started to notice a slight softening of the area. It was night time, so I figured we would wait til morning to see how she was doing. 

Well, we checked her this morning and she's doing great. Her crop has gone done completely, and there was lots of poop as evidence of what was once impacted in there. Thank goodness, because I was seriously worried about her. <3 

Do you have experience with chicken crop? What did you find helpful?