Persistent pasty butt

[-Isla June-]

Feed the chicks some grit. It will help with their digestive system. Also, give them some oatmeal either with their feed or alone. Pasty Butt can be caused by their diet, stress, or temperatures. Make sure the chicks are not to cold. Make sure to use a heat lamp. Since the chicks are brand new and they are getting used to life and the chicks around them, there may be lots of stress. This is unable to be fixed, and they will soon get used to everything. Just avoid a lot of change too fast. For their feed, I recommend adding lots of healthy nutrients. If truly needed, use antibiotics but make sure to give it to the chicks carefully since their digestive system and body has just begun working. This will help to flush bacteria out. Hope this all helps!

 

[3KillerBs]

I am going to have to try mash with this batch of babies. My last batch didn't like it.

That's unusual. Most chicks go nuts for it.

 

[3KillerBs]

Feed the chicks some grit. It will help with their digestive system. Also, give them some oatmeal either with their feed or alone. Pasty Butt can be caused by their diet, stress, or temperatures. Make sure the chicks are not to cold. Make sure to use a heat lamp. Since the chicks are brand new and they are getting used to life and the chicks around them, there may be lots of stress. This is unable to be fixed, and they will soon get used to everything. Just avoid a lot of change too fast. For their feed, I recommend adding lots of healthy nutrients. If truly needed, use antibiotics but make sure to give it to the chicks carefully since their digestive system and body has just begun working. This will help to flush bacteria out. Hope this all helps!

IIRC from information provided by @U_Stormcrow, oatmeal is too high fiber to be healthy for chickens in any but the smallest quantities (which would be miniscule for chicks).

A good quality chick starter feed already has the "healthy nutrients" they need. Pasty Butt is usually caused by some kind of stress (or a genetic propensity) -- often related to heat or shipping.

 

[-Isla June-]

How Can I Prevent Pasty Butt?​

Prevention of Pasty Butt includes ...

• providing fresh, clean water and fresh feed, discarding old, wet feed immediately
• adding 1 Tablespoon/gallon of apple cider vinegar to the water
• adding probiotic powder to the daily feed

• offering a small amount of plain unflavored yogurt as an occasional treat

 

[U_Stormcrow]

IIRC from information provided by @U_Stormcrow, oatmeal is too high fiber to be healthy for chickens in any but the smallest quantities (which would be miniscule for chicks).

A good quality chick starter feed already has the "healthy nutrients" they need. Pasty Butt is usually caused by some kind of stress (or a genetic propensity) -- often related to heat or shipping.

Oats are high in beta-glucans, which can contribute to sticky poops. I would NOT offer that to birds already suffering pasty butt. Barley as well. Then Rye. Barley and Rye are less likely to be "off the shelf" solutions for most chicken keepers, however.

Sticky poops are often associated with high stress conditions, shipping particularly, but also heat stress. I find (**anecdotally**) that offering feed as a wet mash or even a started ferment (live plain yogurt cultures swirled in) can be beneficial in assisting to resolve some of those issues. I can NOT point to any studies supporting my observations, and it may relate to my hot humid climate, or some other factor I am unaware of.

/edit I am not the fan of ACV that many are, though I understand the science behind it, both in the use of the "mother" to provide beneficial bacteria and the adjustment of pH in the gutt to alter the biome and select for different bacteria there. Most people don't know the pH of their water, so they are slapping the veneer of science over a process they are merely guessing at in hopes of altering the pH of their birds insides to a target they don't know, and can't measure, by adding a difficult to measure amount of acid to a waterer of uncertain capacity. and then wating for the newly introduced bacteria (if they used the "mother") to reproduce to useful levels.

Swirl in a tsp of lactobacillus-laden live yogurt culture into a half cup of feed, then add water till its wet mash. Give it some time to jumpstart many of those processes, add some useful enzymes, and incidentally ups water intake for the poor birds. Its still guess work, yes, but its a rather more direct process.

 

[3KillerBs]

How Can I Prevent Pasty Butt?​

Prevention of Pasty Butt includes ...

• providing fresh, clean water and fresh feed, discarding old, wet feed immediately
• adding 1 Tablespoon/gallon of apple cider vinegar to the water
• adding probiotic powder to the daily feed
• offering a small amount of plain unflavored yogurt as an occasional treat

I do not agree with the practice of offering only water with additives in it. As a supplement, yes, but as the only water, no.

 

[3KillerBs]

I can NOT point to any studies supporting my observations, and it may relate to my hot humid climate, or some other factor I am unaware of.

I wish there were some such information so that we'd be able to base our treatments on sound Ag Science.

Anecdotally, I've only had pasty butt in one batch so far -- shipped from Texas to NC in a heat wave last spring.

 

[Farm Up North]

Both times I ordered chicks, I had at least one or two who didn't recover from shipping stress as fast as the others, so I had to clean butts for a few days. I generally just make sure that I keep an eye on everyone and usually after about a week, they grow out of it.