Poop Stuck to Butt

[JustCallMeMoe]

One of my chicks has poop stuck to her butt. Can I just wipe it off? She's not sick is she? Sorry, I'm a first time chick parent and I'm a little over protective.

 

[waddles99]

Its called pasty butt. Very common in baby chicks. Normally the mother cleans it off with her beak, so when raising chicks in a brooder without the mother present it happens a lot. Take a paper towel soaked in warm water and gently clean it off. If you don't clean it up, she will not be able to poop, and could die, so you did the right thing monitoring your chicks! No such thing as over protective!

 

[CochinLover1]

That is called pasting. If it is hard, soak the chick's bum in warm water to soak it off. Just the bum, so the chick doesn't get chilled. Your chick is probably fine. If it is a regular occurrence, you might have to switch something up. Do the chicks have grit?

 

[JustCallMeMoe]

No they don't have grit but they have the crumbles. Do they still need grit? Its kind of weird that its just my 2 Australorps with the poop stuck to their butt

 

[waddles99]

Forgot to add, adding apple cider vinegar in their water helps with this. If you are feeding crumbles, they don't need grit to be able to digest it.

 

[Fleetwood77]

One of my chicks has this too. Just one out of 6. Be sure to keep wiping it and monitor that she is able to poop.
I was given the advice that grit will help, even if you're just feeding chick starter. You would offer the grit in a separate dish. Also probiotics and crumbled up egg yolk. Mine seems a bit better today, so it looks like that's working. Good luck with yours.

 

[rlhagan56]

Just to add in here, my shipment of Silkies all have had pasty butt for 6 days. With their black skin it is hard to see so I have to pick each one up and they are so tiny. I have added probiotics, ACV, some scrambled yolk, fine grit, and vaseline on their butts. There was still pasty butt but not as bad. Cleaning them 3 X daily (that is how bad it was) stressed them more but I had no choice. I have never dealt with pasty butt before.

Someone I know told me to get Corid/Amprolium and add !/4 tsp to every 4 OZ and that it wasn't enough to overdose, that their medicated feed had too small of an amount to help with their shipping stress. Well, it worked! A fresh solution in their water every day. She said the breeder told her that diarrhea is no longer the norm for Coccidosis, and the feed doesn't have enough to treat, only a good preventative.

 

[LaBellaVita]

I have a sicilian buttercup chick that this keeps happening to. I have had to soak her bottom 3 times in the past two days.