Hi! We're totally new to chickens [our borough just allowed laying hens in our little town], and we went and got our seven long-awaited peeps two days ago, from a hatchery recommended by one of our progressive Amish [not as oxymoron-ic as you might think] friends! They're--of course--freakin' adorable [barred rocks], and everybody's perky! My question is: Is vent-pasting immediately apparent/visible, i.e. matting fluff because the vent is pasting, or do we go in under the fluff, and dig around a bit? Thank you!
If they have a pasty butt you should be able to see it pretty easily, unless they have really long fuzz (do any chicks have long down?).
Pasty butt, you will know, its a hard piece of dark hard poop stuck on their fur and butt, when it gets bad it will close them up and they wont be able to poop,
