Is it possible for a chick to have a prolapsed vent?

[jhoxie]

I have a verry wee RIR chick that is having a heck of a time making a poop come out. She almost seems to be in pain with each poop. I have had to remove some of the runny ones from her bum. She is eating and drinking normally, but not getting as big as the others in her mini flock and chirps like she's hurting when she poops. Suggestions?

 

[seminolewind]

I don't know. Chicks are kinda hard to diagnose, and even harder to treat. I just had a chick die on me , the food was not going through. I don't think it ever went thru because her butt was just too clean.

Make her some chick feed mush. And give her some yoghurt. There's not much else you can do.

Prolapse would mean it was inverted and hanging out of the body.

 

[Haunted55]

I have a verry wee RIR chick that is having a heck of a time making a poop come out. She almost seems to be in pain with each poop. I have had to remove some of the runny ones from her bum. She is eating and drinking normally, but not getting as big as the others in her mini flock and chirps like she's hurting when she poops. Suggestions?

How old? I had one like this and she did get over whatever it was eventually. Have you added chick grit? Another thing to check, I am going to assume that these chicks are in the brooder still, what is the temperature inside it? Sometimes too much heat will cause this as well as the pasty butt.

As Seminole said, a little yogurt and adding water to their feed to make the mash, may help. If you add the grit, that will also help. If she still seems to be having problems, you could also try some scrambled eggs, chopped fine. Since I do not know if you are giving medicated chick feed to them, I hesitate to tell you to give them vitamins. That would be counterproductive to keeping your chick problem free with the coccidia the feed keeps in check. More info would be very helpful.

One last thing...as Seminolewind also pointed out, sometimes there is nothing we can do. There may be something inside, we can't see, that could be causing the problem. I am not saying don't try! Me? I'd be doing everything I could to help the chick get over/through this, as I know Seminolewind did with hers as well. It's just what you do. I think there is a good chance this one can make it, it may take a while, but it sounds to me as if it may just need time for it's body to learn how to process the food.

 

[NotableNancy]

I had one like this recently. She is almost 7 weeks old now and finally does not 'peep when she poops' anymore. Every time she poo'ed she seemed in pain, peeped a few times then picked around her vent area for a few minutes. Her first few weeks I had to constantly clean her vent area with a soft cloth because it was getting clogged. I used vaseline on it and neosporin as well. I gave ACV in the water and occasionally gave her poly-vi-sol (the baby vitamins) by eye dropper and I also bought Nutri Drench and gave her that a few times. She is so much smaller than the other chicks and much less feathered out but it doesn't seem to bother her in the least.
So just keep an eye on her and make sure she is getting extra fluids, keep her vent area clean and hopefully it will pass.