My Chick Won’t Let Me Clean Her Pasty Butt

[Quailquestions6498]

do i keep it off the pink part only put it on a bit of the surrounding fluff? also i have heard mixed opinions on using stuff on their butts, is it safe? thanks so much!

Sorry for not giving details! Here is a perfect article for it: https://www.raising-happy-chickens.com/pasty-butt.html

 

[New to Chick Life]

I notice you've already found a fix, and have had a lot of tips, but I wanted to share my own tip in case this happens again

I recommend holding the chick with his/her legs coming out from between your fingers. This will help make sure it doesn't move as much. I just got a chick who was starting to get pasty butt, I took a paper towel and wet it with warm water, tried to soften the poop with it, and then took a toothpick and gently removed the feathers from the...poop rock? I also read that when the chick has a real bad pasty butt, it's okay to soak their butts in lukewarm water to get it to soften.

I hope you don't have to deal with this again!

 

[BigBlueHen53]

do i keep it off the pink part only put it on a bit of the surrounding fluff? also i have heard mixed opinions on using stuff on their butts, is it safe? thanks so much!

Vaseline is completely safe and soothing even on delicate tissues.

 

[Eggscaping]

I have a chick that has a little bit of pasty butt and I have been cleaning her and watching her and when i clean her she won’t hold still so I can’t get all the poop off. Eventually she just pooped on me but there is still a little gunk on her butt. It doesn’t cover her vent and since i got her to poop is it ok to let it be? I don’t want to stress her out too much. Any information helps!

After about 2 weeks, that period ends, or did for us. Up until then it was a constant check.
What we did here was blindfold the little bugger, tie its legs together, spank it to teach it we were the boss...yell at it to make it cower.....
Well, no, not really. What we did was to hold the butt under a little stream of warm water in the sink. Then dry carefully. That worked for us.

 

[One Lucky Momma]

We had a few chicks with pasty butt for about three days right after they arrived. I had good results with a spray I made from about 3oz water, 5 drops lavender essential oil and 2 drops Dr. Bronner’s liquid soap (any castile soap is probably fine). Small spray bottles can be saved and repurposed, or you can find them new at the natural foods store or anywhere cosmetics are sold.

I found that if I held them securely in one hand, with their heads down, they would be still for me to spritz the crusties. I’d put the first one down to soften up a bit while I spritzed the others. When I got back to the first one I‘d dab the now softened poo with a q-tip. Occasionally I had to repeat the spritzing. Once the poop was off I’d dry their little fluffs and apply a little aloe.

No more problems with it after I started giving them greens (fresh chickweed pulled up from the yard).

 

[middle TN Nancy]

My neighbor had new chicks (mine were still on order) and I pointed out that one had pasty butt (she didn’t know what it was and didn’t recognize it). It was fairly big and dried and extensive. I applied warm wet paper towel for the longest time and we eventually decided to hold its little butt in warm water which finally worked. Dried her off well and she joined her flock mates. There was basically no down left in the butt area and for several days it looked bare and pitiful but she did fine.