Remedies for the Dreded Pasty Butt

[wayneh]

I have noticed several remedies for pasty butt. Yogart, molassas, sand, bird grit, and sever others I can't remember. By no means am I a chicken expert, but I know several. The best advice I was given was sand. No not the play sand at Home Depot, or Lowes. just plain old building or construction sand. we started feeding our chicks at week 2, when we had a case of the pasty butt. tried the yogart also, but our chicks would not eat the stuff. they would gobble up gobs of sand though and it worked. some asked if they would eat too much and become compacted, that will not happen. they will eat all they need and quit. just make sure they have plenty of water available. one of my friends told me to treat my baby chicks like their mom would, mom would let them eat dirt if they wanted. so let them eat dirt. now we have new babies and they started getting sand on day one. we have a creek nearby and I just got some sand from the bank. thats what they get, we sprinkle some in the chick starter and around the floor. these little chicks will scratch around and pick out little pieces of the sand and eat. no sign of the pasty butt, and very healthy happy chicks.
we just think, what would mom do? she would scratch around and show her chicks how to find food and what to eat. now our big chicks will follow us around, using a long stick, we scratch, chicks love it. they will run and see what nice things we have uncovered.
Its my feeling that the chicks need grit, ie(sand) from day one. they can eat the chick starter without sand, but if they eat anything else they need grit. thinking like mom, they need grit from day one. as you can tell, I am a firm beliver in sand. ie grit.
hope this post will help some that have the pasty butt.

 

[speckledhen]

I can't imagine how molasses, being a sugar, would help pasty butt, just the opposite. All that would do it cause diarrhea, which is not what you want with pasty butt!

The only thing I use now is organic, unfiltered apple cider vinegar with "the mother" in it. A couple teaspoons to a gallon waterer. Most of the time, pasty butt is not an issue unless chicks are shipped, though on occasion, one will pop up with it that I've hatched here. They get no sugar in their water, period. Not sure how sand helps pasty butt--it certainly is good for chick grit so they can grind anything other than chick starter. Most of the time, they get over pasty butt as they get up to a couple weeks old anyway.

 

[Chicken-lover312]

That info really helped.Thank you wayneh!