CornishX Chicks...help!

[OzarkChooks]

Noticed this morning that 2 of our chicks look like they have scabs. They are 1 week old. This is our first time with cornishx and my husband is the main care taker of them. Are the other chicks pecking at this one? If they are, what should we do?

 

[OzarkChooks]

Can you use Blu kote on chicks?

 

[iwltfum]

May we see a picture of their housing/bedding/heating situation?

 

[Geena]

Are you sure that's a scab? Kinda just looks like a cecal poop stuck in the fluff.

 

[CNJ]

Vaseline worked for me, they don't like the taste of it.

 

[OzarkChooks]

We are bringing in another heat plate because they are getting bigger quick. Any ideas/thoughts/criticisms are welcome. We have never done this before.

I'm cleaning out their bedding in the morning. I have never had week old chicks that poop as much as these guys.

So you think it's not a scab, just poop???

Why are their chest feathers looking so...bare?

 

[Coops Dad]

They're the laziest birds on the planet. When they're a little older, they remind me of Pac-Man frogs- too fat to chase food so they waddle to where the food is, plop down, eat what's in reach, waddle a foot, plop down, eat what's in reach, ad infinitum. Constant contact with the ground leaves their bellies and chests pretty threadbare.

 

[Coops Dad]

Also, their genetics apparently include "CX pattern balding"- their heavier chest and belly feathers are in two double stripes, one on each side of the keel.

 

[iwltfum]

Thank you for the extra pic. Their living situation looks pretty good. Cornish cross do "bald" in surprising spots sometimes, but this usually happens after they have started to loose their fluff or after they are fully feathered. If it's not poop or some type of dirt on the skin, it could be a mild skin scald potentially from something like: it could have splashed in the waterer and then went to sleep for the night with its neck on a fresh poop, for example. Probably not anything to worry about unless you see more chicks with the same thing. If you do see more of it, you'll want to refresh their bedding and/or somehow mitigate their getting wet in the water. If there is not much air flow in the brooder, things can take a while to dry out and that can sometimes be a factor.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Why are their chest feathers looking so...bare?

I think part of it is that they grow so fast the feathering process can't keep up. At one week that's the down they hatched with, so their skin is expanding while the number of down "shafts" is the same. For various reasons bare spots are pretty common with Cornish X, doesn't seem to affect their ability to keep themselves warm.