How to get chicks to start grooming each other??

[HenMomma7650]

Hey guys! I’ve been growing chickens for basically my entire life but I’ve never seen this before.

One of my chicks head is extremely dirty. I have 12 total 11 are about a week old from tractor supply and 1 is 12 days old that was born in my coop.

However one of the chicks I’ve gotten from tractor supply has been getting increasingly dirty. It’s butt is clean of poop but for some reason it isn’t getting groomed by the other chicks and if I weren’t watching it carefully I’d think it were sick.

It acts eats sleeps and plays like a healthy chick but it looks sick because its head is covered in old food/egg/water and it’s the only chick not being groomed. It’s not a runt it’s one of the biggest chicks but it doesn’t help.

I’ve been cleaning it with warm water and a q-tip but is there anyway to make the other chicks start grooming this one? I fear if I leave this alone long enough that the chick could be ostracized when we move them to the big chicken coop.

 

[Wyorp Rock]

I would just clean the chick really well.

Provide them with shallow pan of dirt/sand mix so they can take a bath.

 

[The Birb King]

Chicks don't usually groom each other, they only groom themselves. As for that one chick with pasty butt its very common. Just fill a small container with warm water, hold the chick in there, and just slowly take pieces off as it gets softer.

 

[NatJ]

As for that one chick with pasty butt its very common. Just fill a small container with warm water, hold the chick in there, and just slowly take pieces off as it gets softer.

Pasty butt is poop stuck on the butt of the chick.
That is not what the OP described in the first post:

...one of the chicks I’ve gotten from tractor supply has been getting increasingly dirty. It’s butt is clean of poop...

...its head is covered in old food/egg/water...

So I do not know what IS going on, but I do not think this is a case of pasty butt.