What is the BEST treatment for pasty butt?

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briana1975

briana1975

Songster
10 Years
Feb 23, 2009
2,190
35
181
Carleton Mi.
I have searched and searched on this and there are a lot of diffrent answers. Warm water, qtips, vasilone, veggie oil,yorgurt to eat or mixed in water, or molasses in water. Right now I have chicks that keep pasting up. I am cleaning butts with warm mild soapy water then blow drying on low heat 3 times a day. My family thinks I am crazy. I have put molasses in the water till it looks like week tea. I have even tried to put veggie oil over clean bottoms to keep the poop from sticking. That doesn't seem to work for me. It started with 5 chicks it is down to only having to clean 3 now. How long should I keep adding the molasses? Is it going to hurt the other chicks who do not have the pasty butt? Also how often should I be cleaning their little bottoms? Is 3 times a day to much? I know this is out there a lot but there are so many diffrent answers to all the posts I really appreciate all the help.
 
I would think molasses makes the pasty butt worse?
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At least I know too much in other animals can cause runny poo. For my chicks I just clean the bottom once and it seems to go right away.
 
My approach to pasty butt is different from most. I would give them clean fresh water, no additives.
If the poo was not blocking the vent and they could eliminate normally, I did nothing. It cleared itself up in a few days.
 
I'm not sure I would have the answer but I'll post so you stay on top of the recent posts. I used molassas for about a day and for the first week, I keep papertowels over the bedding. That way they don't try to eat the wood chips. I've only had a couple that had pasty butt and they only had it for a brief time.

I used bag balm on the worst one. Didn't get their bottoms super wet so decided not to blow dry their bottoms since I didn't want to stress them out anymore than what they already were.
 
What finally did the trick for mine after trying many things was holding their little bottoms under a very light warm trickle of water in the sink. I'd kind of work the poop off with my finger nails and then have a small towel ready. I'd hold them awhile all wrapped up in the towel and every single time they'd be sound asleep within 5 seconds! CUTE! Then back into the brooder. Only 2 or so days of that and then they were totally fine and no more pasting. I started adding a little bit of apple cider vinegar to their water right about then too- don't know if it helped or if it was just coincidence but the pasting stopped, whatever the reason.

edited to add that my avatar picture is a chick who had JUST had his/her bottom cleaned. See how content he is?
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I just checked them again for the night. Looks like it is down to 2 with the pasty butt. Getting better. The molasses is for consipation. There has been a lot of post that said pasty butt is not from runny poo. The chicks I keep having to clean up have thick pasty poo. Not a lot of runny poo. I just don't want it to affect the other chicks to much. I will not blow dry them. I don't want to stress them out too much.
 
I can only tell you what worked for us. We never did anything elaborate. We just filled a bowl with warm water and literally held the chicks bottoms down under the water for about a minute until they got good and wet. Then we wiped them off with a coarse washcloth (nothing that would hurt them, but not a fluffy one either). We've had three batches of chicks now and that seemed to clear up the problem each time. That's definitely not one of the funnest parts about having chickens.....
 
Ok so there are a lot of diffrent things you can try but the one thing that seems to alway be the same is just to keep it cleaned off. I will just keep cleaning chicken butts. Hope it clears up soon.
 
Pasting can come as a result of temps either too hot or too cold, so you may try to make certain they have the ability to self-regulate by getting closer to or farther from the heat lamp.
 
I have not had the problem with chicks I hatch, only with chicks shipped. I'm betting it is stress related. Vitamins would probably help, but worked for me after cleaning their butts was to put the starter feed in a coffee grinder and grind it to a powder.

I discovered this by accident when bantam chicks just would not eat the starter and picked for the fine particles. Once they started eating the powder pasty butt was gone. I'm guessing the powder is easier to digest. I wish the starter was sold in very fine form.
 

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