2 of my 5 day old chicks pasty butt emergency

[Scorpiochick]

Ok after reading lots of info on this today I have 2 babies that had this. So I gave them all a little grit and a tiny bit of oatmeal. Then I took the 2 that were pasty and set them in a shallow bowl for maybe 45 seconds to a minute and was able to pull away easily the yuck from the little seabright. However my little belgian bearded D'uccle did the same thing,but also trimmed a little teeny speck of down to help her out. She is seeming to not be handling it very well. she is under the heat lamp,im sure drying off, but her breathing seems kind of labored and her little pookie is kind of protruding!!! Is this normal??? The Seabright had that too, but she was much more active and seems to have bounced back super quick,and she is the tiny runt. Her little pookie is going back in. What do I do with my 5 day olf Mille fleur? No bleeding...just let her rest?? I dont want to lose any of these little ones. Did I do too much??? PLEASE HELP

 

[Judy]

I'm going to be lazy, and C&P this from another post of mine:

The main thing is to keep the vent itself open. The danger is when the plug prevents their pooping, which can actually be lethal. And the main thing for that is to keep them hydrated and not too hot. Very young chicks often foul their water quickly, so it may need some attention. Put it up on a brick or similar if you can. For not too hot, it's a good thing for them to be able to move away from their heat source to wherever they are comfortable. If you have some, a little organic ACV (apple cider vinegar) in the water does seem to help.

Also, for those you have cleaned, put a little lubricant around their vent to discourage future poops from sticking. You can use Vaseline, veggie oil, Crisco, even Neosporin -- whatever you have. I found it easiest to clean them by holding their back end under a slow stream of running warm water. It takes a few minutes. If I didn't get every fleck off every feather tip, frankly, I didn't worry about it. It shouldn't be a problem as long as the skin doesn't have any open cuts or abrasions.

 

[wsufans]

when we had this issue a couple of summers ago (with barred rock pullets) we purchased the Chick Boost electrolytes, mixed them according to directions, and actually held the little darling in our hand, suspending drops of the fortified water off the end of a bulb syringe for her to take.

My husband also put the chick starter feed in.the.blender to make it a fine powder and held her in one hand with the feed in the other so she didn't have to really exert much effort to eat it.

I thought he was crazy. But the barred rock lived and thrived!

Good luck. It's hard seeing the little ones struggle.

 

[Sarevan]

After cleaning bad pasty butt they can have a plugged vent internally, like being constipated. I used a qtip, warm water to gently clean just inside vent, not putting qtip inside just the tip on vent edges to get a bit of water inside from the swab. I dried off the butt with a cotton ball so it wouldn't get chilled. Water helped loosen up the mess and it had a big poop for a chick. I then put vaseline around the vent to keep anything from sticking. I put acv in water and that helped too.

Good luck!