has anyone seen this before? Its the bum of my 2 wk old ancona chick. She's one of the 2 that seems to be stuck with pasty butt. I clean her daily, and it didn't look like this yesterday. I haven't seen any pecking in the brooder....there is a little acv and molasses in the water, clean shavings, unmedicated feed...they had greek yogurt once a few days ago... Its shiny due to some neosporin.
Has the vent always looked like that or is it just swollen from irritation? A two week old chick shouldn't be drinking water with molasses or apple cider vinegar in it. Yogurt has too much calcium for chicks. Too much calcium will damage the kidneys. If you want them to get probiotics just use a vitamin/probiotic in the water a couple times a week. The backside doesn't look irritated enough to put ointment on. Chicks being too cold or too warm can give them loose droppings. If the chicks around two weeks old, you probably have around 90 degree temperature in the brooder right? When the chicks are three weeks you want to use Corid/Amprolium in the water.
Alright. Well, I know a few people that swear by this as well as me. The first or second day of the chicks life, they give their chicks a product called Gro-Gel. After that, they give them chick scratch for 2 days with a vitamin/probiotic in the water. The reason is because soybeans are a major component of chick starter. Non-organic soybeans are all GMO. Between chilling and soy, they paste up their butts. What you can do is make sure the chick isn't being pushed away from the warmer area of the brooder by other chicks. Put small ground organic chick scratch in one feed container and an organic starter in another. Allow the container of chick scratch for 5-7 days and see how the digestion is. If there are no problems then you can pull the chick scratch out and let them eat starter.
Also, it is less irritating, and you are less likely to do damage to the chick's vent with a warm compress on a pasty butt. Once the clogged area softens, you can remove it easier. Make sure the chick's behind is blotted nice and dry before putting back in the brooder to avoid chilling.
Thank you so much for this information 2 out of 6 of my 5 day old babies have had pasty butt. I've been doing the compress and it works well the babies seem to relax after a few seconds and it's easy to get off. The first one to have this problem has had the pleasure of being called poopie butt, my son and I want to rename her gross rose! Anyway we are off to get some organic scratch, I'm all about organice foods but for some reason it was hard to find this in our area for the chickens which is weird because we had quite a few organic farms here and canada that we buy or food from (canada isn't from from us lake Ontario seperates us so it isn't a long haul for shipping). But again thanks this helps a lot.
