Pecking at pasty butt

UrbanEnthusiast

Songster
7 Years
Jul 12, 2012
511
12
156
Port Orford, Oregon
I have five chicks around two weeks old, three Egyptian Fayoumis and two silver spangled Hamburg. When we brought them home from the feed store about a week ago, we quickly realized one of the Hamburgs had a touch of pasty butt, so we took care of that. A couple days later I noticed she had some poop stuck in her fluff just below the cloaca, so I pulled it off, but that was stupid because it pulled off a tiny bit of skin and the Fayoumis started pecking at it. So I isolated her for about 20 minutes, and they seemed to stop pecking at that point. I figured it would heal on its own. Only problem is, poop keeps getting stuck to the spot, and it's still getting pecked some. The Fayoumis will bite down on the dried poop and actually pull her backwards! There's no sign of redness or swelling, just a wee bit of scabbing and some stubborn poop embedded in her butt fluff that I can't seem to soak off with warm compresses. Her demeanor seems fine, just as peppy as the rest, though she is definitely at the bottom of the pecking order (the other Hamburg is on top). Should I keep soaking her butt or just see if things resolve on their own? I should clarify that her cloaca looks fine. The problem spot is just below that. It's like a quarter the size of a pencil eraser.
 
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Things seem good for you.
Now to stop the problem. They need probiotics. You can give plain yogurt or Kefir with active cultures or a product called Gro2Max. Any avian probiotic will work as well. You can probably get those from a pet store.
 
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If she has a sore you can put some blue kote on it and they shouldn't mess with it. I would try to keep the poop cleaned off. They might be trying to help her, or they could be trying to eat it because they think it's food, who knows what goes on in the mind of chickens sometimes lol. When mine have had poop on their butt or something else the others like to try to mess with it. I try to keep them clean, but it's not always easy with chicks because they seem to love to make a mess. Even my ducklings will pick at poop on the other though (on fur).
 
They've been on probiotics and antibiotics since the day we got them.

Why have baby chicks been on antibiotics since you got them? Were they sick? And what kind of antibiotic have they been treated with?

Antibiotics will negate any beneficial probiotics you gave them.
 
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