Please Help Me My baby girls butt is really bad!!!!!!

[todd1210]

I posted earlier about my 14 week old chick. This morning the other chicks were pecking at her and I found a big hole in her butt lots of yellow stuff coming out and blood. She wont eat I got her to take a couple of sips of water she just stands there with her eyes closed. She is isolated from the flock. I rinsed of her butt I dont know what else to do. Anybody know what this could be?

 

[threehorses]

She probably had pasty butt and the other chicks wounded her.

Treat the wound like any other. (See an article below that covers most wounds.) In this case, hydrogen peroxide diluted with water, preferably quite vigorously rinsing it. Or saline (homemade or bought) works. See other posts here for the low-salt saline mix (NOT the one where you use 1 cup of salt to 2 cups water - it's more like 2 tablespoons to a gallon of water). Rinse thoroughly, iodine/water mixed together til they're tea colored - use that to 'rinse' the area. Pat dry, then use neosporin on her bottom. You can also get a q-tip and put some inside her vent. But remember, ou'll need to rinse up into her vent a bit with the saline to wash the pus out.

If you have flies in the area, bring her inside. If you can't bring her inside, get some Swat antibiotic ointment (horse aisle of the feedstore) and use that on her outer vent.

Make sure she's warm as necessary for her age. You can also use blu-cote on her wound and put her with another buddy, but watch carefully that she doesn't get picked again.

You'll need to dribble water at the side of her beak (not inside) preferably with electrolytes and some nutrition in it. I mixx a boiled egg yolk, oatmeal ground into a powder, or even just crumbles into water til it's like a soup and dribble that into their beaks. Add pedialyte or another electrolyte to that to help hydrate her. She's very stressed.

Let's start there and see how she does.

 

[todd1210]

Im sorry I am very new to this what is pasty butt?

 

[threehorses]

Pasty butt is a condition where the droppings, rather than falling to the ground, stick around the edge of the vent of the bird. It's usually caused by some sort of digestive imbalance caused by stress, illness, change in diet, worms (less often), etc etc.

Poultry digestive systems depend on two things that allow them to eat and digest what we can't: their gizzard (grinds foods), and bacteria (dissolves and digests what the gizzard doesn't grind down). That's why they can eat a whole oat and get nutrition out of it, or grass, for example.

Good bacteria line the digestive tract and are especially concentrated behind the gizzard in the intestines. In addition to breaking down foods (making enzymes, vitamins, and nutrition out of them) they also secrete enzymes that help to ward off bad bacteria and yeasts. Even more so, they help crowd out bad bacteria by their numbers.

It takes a bacteria-dependant animal (read as grain/grass eaters) a month for their little 'colony' of bacteria to adjust to change. Or sickness. When they're off balance, bad bacteria, yeasts, parasites like cocci, etc all are more likely to be able to take over causing diarrhea, inability to digest food, illness, etc. Any time part of the digestive system is stressed, the whole thing slows down or shuts down. The crop starts to back up, the droppings stick to the vent, etc.

So... pasty vent is a sign of that. that's why the first thing someone should always do when they see pasty vent is get to work on rebalancing and rebuilding the good bacteria.

Oh well the second thing - first thing is clean it off, gently with gentle materials. Some people recommend hydrogen peroxide. Personally I think about the little fissures on the vent, little cuts, that are probably there from the acidic poop and I think I wouldn't want hydrogen peroxide on mine tushy! OUCH. So I like warm saline water on these birds, maybe a little iodine mixed in in case there are little cuts or irritations on the skin we can't see. you don't have to rinse off the iodine diluted with water - just pat dry and it leaves a little protection there. (Mix betadine and water to the color of tea.) Then once it's patted dry, put some neosporin there for the little fissures.

THEN fix the bacteria.

To do that, we literally replace the bacterial population with more living bacteria! Yogurt is the simplest way in a bird not being treated with ---mycin or ----cycline antibiotics. Look for plain yogurt with live culture bacteria inside. Use about 1 teaspoon per cup of food per adult bird. Some don't like the texture - mix it with crumbles. You don't have to be precise. That's the beauty of it. Just don't use excessive amounts because chickens are lactose sensitive. They can eat yogurt because most of the lactose is reduced by those living bacteria that are reinjected into the pasteurized yogurt!

Other options (safer during antibiotic use) are acidophilus capsules from the grocer/health food store/pharmacy. Better yet, look for a capsule made for women with yeast infections. They contain B. bifidum which is good at helping ward off E. coli infections. You can also buy livestock probioitics at the feedstore (see the horse section - Probios in the cattle section, fastrack for horses - just make sure that they contain live bacteria, not just byproducts). Some petstores sell tubes of probiotics, but they're rather expensive. Other petstores sell (in their reptile and avian sections) bottles of probiotic powder. (Note, Ornabac is a byproduct so it doesn't count.)

Whatever form you choose, after cleaning her vent, she needs a probiotic. And now you hopefully understand a little more why that's needed.

Pardon me for being pedantic, but I love chickens and am fascinated by the way they're "designed". Thankfully that's helped me to glean some tips for chicken lovers to make the chickens' lives better without breaking budgets. Healthy chickens are cheaper chickens, and a delight! I hope we can get your girl back on track.

 

[babyriver]

don't know if it helped her ,but it did help me out thanks

 

[threehorses]

Quote:
I'm glad to hear it! Someone kindly telling me this stuff once helped me out, too. So I pass it on.