Pasty butt question

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coloradowildflower

coloradowildflower

Crowing
14 Years
Jul 12, 2008
323
219
321
Utah
Hi there. 2 of my 7 three-day old chicks are having some pasty butt trouble. I've cleaned them and they are evacuating just fine, but each evening seem to need some cleaning. Both of them still have a little "stump" of what I think is the umbilical cord about a half-inch below the vent. Could this be why they are still pasting up? I was thinking that the umbilical cord might catch droppings on the way down and cause them to accumulate. Anyone noticed a correlation?

I cleaned them the first evening, last night, and again tonight. The first night was the worst and now I'm probably just hypersensitive to it, because they didn't have much tonight and the vents were still clear, but there were some droppings starting to stick, so I cleaned them just to be sure . . . when are we "out of the woods?" How long until pasty butt usually stops being a problem?
 
Pasty butt seems to stop at around 10-14 days. If they are on sugar water, stop the sugar water and replace it with regular water. If you have plain yogurt, a little bit of that a day will help their digestive system, and it will also stop the loose poop. I've also had good luck with pulling up a whole clump of grass, dirt and all, and placing that in the brooder. They'll get beneficial bacteria and other microbes from the soil. Just make sure you don't use grass that has been treated with chemicals.

Also, you can rub a little petroleum jelly, olive oil, etc. around the vent to prevent anymore from sticking. Works like a charm.
 
Awesome! Thank you so much for the help. A couple follow-up questions: Can they have the yogurt now (they'll be 4 days tomorrow)? Do you just use any plain, unsweetened yogurt? If so, should I also put in some sand or parakeet grit or do they not need that to digest yogurt?

Great tips-THANKS SO MUCH!
smile.png
 
Yep! They can have plain, unsweetened yogurt now. They don't need grit for yogurt, since it is easy to digest. If you give them grass and dirt, I would add grit. (Make sure the parakeet grit doesn't have calcium added - some do.)

Btw, I fed a little bit of a probiotic food daily for the first four weeks, and now feed it 2-3 times a week, give or take. I alternate between yogurt and lacto-fermented foods like garlic sauer kraut and cortido. (Like kraut, but tastes like salsa.)
 
Last edited:
we had a pasty butt issue also. did the yogart thing, but it was hard to get the chicks to eat it. then we put some building sand, not the play sand, into their food and sprinkled a little in a pan for them to peck at. think the sand did the trick, cause we don't know how much or if they even ate the yogart. they like the sand also. we put a pan with just sand and they love to roll around it, and no more pasty butt.
 

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