Pendulous Crop

Just sharing a curiosity here. I've been meaning to put some photos up for a while.

I have a speckled sussex that I believe has pendulous crop. She showed signs of a seriously droopy crop from around the age of 5 months. She is now around about 15 months, so she's been like this for a long time. I have read different things about crops, but this seemed relevant:

The underlying theory of why crops become pendulous is thought to be the result of overdistention, causing rupture of some of the elastin fibers holding the muscle layers together. This can be compared to overstretching an elastic waistband. This causes breakage of some of the elastic fibers and eventually it doesn’t return to its original shape. When the muscle integrity is impaired the crop does not contract properly.

Water and feed aren’t completely emptied from the crop which provides an ideal environment for secondaries such as bacteria, yeasts or mold to grow. The lining of a PC may become ulcerated with white plaques from the secondary invaders. Fungal hypae may penetrate through the lining of the crop into the muscle layers below which further disrupts the integrity of the crop. Birds continue to eat but digestion is impaired and emaciation results.
http://www.hybridturkeys.com/Media/PDF_files/Health/Health_PC.pdf

Anyone who has sussex knows that they are very big eaters so I wonder if my bird overdid it and did herself some damage. Perhaps she also had a weakness to begin with. I know sussex have a square shape, but she is definitely out of proportion. No sign of emaciation here!

At this stage her health does not appear to be affected. She has no sign of sour crop, no bad smell etc. The crop looks the same in the morning so some food is obviously not emptying overnight. That has to make her vulnerable to crop problems but for the last 10 months she seems to have gone fine. She's as tough as an old boot actually. The birds in this pen all had a resp infection and she recovered quicker than any of the others. She's always energetic and always hungry. The crop is now hanging so low it's parting the feathers on her breast.

I will not breed from her in case there is a genetic predisposition to it. I'm assuming that at some point she's going to have a problem, possibly sour crop, crop impaction, bacterial infection or something else bad. However, at the moment she eats well, bosses the other hens around and lays consistently.

As a follow-up to this post, several months later the bird finally died. She developed a problem quite quickly and was found dead in the coop within days.