What prevents pasty butt?

[calichicken]

As long as your pullet has a healthy looking vent, with no reddened cloaca (inside part of vent) like the pics in post #21, she probably just needs the feathers around her vent trimmed so there's a clear path for the poop to get out through. Several breeds that have extra fluffy bottoms, for lack of a better term, often need a good trimming. Just don't do it while they're molting and putting on new feathers, because the new feathers can bleed if they're cut before they've fullly emerged from the coating around their base.

Yep.. sometimes a butt trim is just what they need I have one bantam Cochin that had constant "skid marks" on her butt cushion and if we didn't trim it.. it just kept building up

 

[nightowl223]

Yep.. sometimes a butt trim is just what they need I have one bantam Cochin that had constant "skid marks" on her butt cushion and if we didn't trim it.. it just kept building up

Yep, my banty Cochins are some of the worst ones, LOL! My Light Brahmas occasionally, but the banty Cochins... always!

 

[ducks4you]

Pasty butt occurs bc baby chicks eat pine bedding and they don't consume enough water to pass it through as a liquid. I don't know about anybody else, but I use old towels on TOP of bedding on TOP of 4 inches of garden dirt in my used-to-be 110 gallon steel water tank/brooder. I keep them on the towels, which I change out every day or every other day until they start getting their real feathers. They dump the extra feed on the towels and don't eat the pine shavings. ALSO, the baby chicks get traction from the towels so that they don't slip and lame themselves.

 

[ToniTalley]

Not sure what causes pasty butt, but two of our hens got it two years ago. We washed their butts daily for 4 days, put them in a soak with epsom salts, then after rinsing them, we sprayed their butts with an anti-fungal spray. We also started giving them yogurt for their guts, and so far, have not have had a reoccurrence since then. We give them a small amount of plain yogurt still, as they love it.