Pasty Butt obsessed with worry!

[GoldyLizzy]

So I just got my baby chicks in the mail on Friday and I'm finding that all Im doing is worrying about pasty butt.

I check the chicks butts all day long and if I see any poop at all I wash it off. Is this what Im supposed to be doing? or if its just a little bit am I supposed to leave it? These are my first chicks. Oh and do they grow out of this, and if so about when?
Thanks so much!

 

[eggbert420]

What are you feeding them?

 

[aart]

They should grow out of it soon, a couple days, their little digestive systems are not tuned in just yet.

Are they all eating and drinking well?
What are you feeding?

Keeping the brooder at good temps can alleviate the problem.
Too hot especially can cause this...but so can too cold.


Here's my notes on chick heat, hope something in there might help:
They need to be pretty warm(~85-90F on the brooder floor right under the lamp and 10-20 degrees cooler at the other end of brooder) for the first day or two, especially if they have been shipped, until they get to eating, drinking and moving around well. But after that it's best to keep them as cool as possible for optimal feather growth and quicker acclimation to outside temps. A lot of chick illnesses are attributed to too warm of a brooder. I do think it's a good idea to use a thermometer on the floor of the brooder to check the temps, especially when new at brooding, later I still use it but more out of curiosity than need.

The best indicator of heat levels is to watch their behavior:
If they are huddled/piled up right under the lamp and cheeping very loudly, they are too cold.
If they are spread out on the absolute edges of the brooder as far from the lamp as possible, panting and/or cheeping very loudly, they are too hot.
If they sleep around the edge of the lamp calmly just next to each other and spend time running all around the brooder they are juuuust right!

The lamp is best at one end of the brooder with food/water at the other cooler end of the brooder, so they can get away from the heat or be under it as needed. Wattage of 'heat' bulb depends on size of brooder and ambient temperature of room brooder is in. Regular incandescent bulbs can be used, you might not need a 'heat bulb'. You can get red colored incandescent bulbs at a reptile supply source. A dimmer extension cord is an excellent way to adjust the output of the bulb to change the heat without changing the height of the lamp.


Or you could go with a heat plate, commercially made or DIY: https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/pseudo-brooder-heater-plate

 

[GoldyLizzy]

Thanks for helping me. I'm feeding them Organic Starter Crumbles and Ive added electrolytes to the water. On Friday it was to warm in the brooder according to the thermometer however the chicks primarily stayed under the heat lamp anyway. I think that the heat lamp is to big so Ive ordered another, arriving tomorrow. I have raised the current one up pretty high so the thermometer is reading 95 on the brooder floor now. The chicks seem very happy (except when I'm washing butts), eating and drinking well. They go all over the place. they also sleep kind of
all over the place, even with their heads in the food, but the preferred spot seems to be on top of the thermometer under the lamp. Almost every time I check there is a little bit of poop on a butt, I feel bad constantly freaking one out by washing it.

 

[azygous]

Try mixing some minced boiled egg in with their crumbles. That should help them get past the poopy butt problem. But continue to clean off any poop you find on their butts.

What is you ambient temperature where you are brooding the chicks? Sometimes it's warm enough to begin with to forego a 250 watt heat bulb and a 100 watt incandescent bulb is plenty of heat. I found that out once when I was brooding some late chicks in August.

Have you looked into the heating pad system? It's much more natural than a light blazing over your chicks 24/7 which adds unnecessary stress due to being under constant bright light. You try getting some sleep with a bright light shinning on you all night long. It's a lot cheaper, too, than all the amps you'll be paying for with a heat bulb over the next month.

 

[GoldyLizzy]

How do I check the ambient temperature? Boiling some eggs now, thanks! Is the heating pad like the EcoGlow? I thought I had studied up.....