Good afternoon! I know, strange title… but this is important and could save your chick’s life one day. So… what is pasty butt, you ask?
Pasty butt is a common thing that can happen to your chicks. When chicks are stressed, chilled or dehydrated, they can get this. It can be fatal, if not treated. Its just poop that has hardened on a chick’s bottom but it can block their vent. This is critical that the vent area gets cleaned thoroughly because the vent is the place where they poop, urinate and lay eggs. If it is blocked, the chick can’t poop or pee leading to death.
This is what happened and how we dealt with it. As we were looking at our chicks the other day we discovered that one of our leghorn chicks had pasty butt. The first thing I tried to do was just wipe the poop off, but it was really dried and stuck. So I went and got a small plastic tub and filled it with warm water. Then I picked up the little leghorn chick and she got a bottom soak, which she seemed to enjoy for a little while. After her soak I tried to wipe her bottom again, but it was still stuck. So I soaked her bottom some more and finally I got it off. Today I checked her bottom, but which bottom is her’s? Her bottom was so clean I could not tell the two leghorns apart!! I have decided to name her Tweety because of her sweet little tweets while I soaked her. I did finally determine which chick was which…. because Tweety has a bigger head than April. So I figured out which leghorn was which!
This morning my mom was talking with a Google+ friend who has a business helping people start farms and raise healthy animals. Ms. Vicky Hinschlager owns Small Farm Solutions and she confirmed that we did the right thing to help Tweety. I’m thankful Ms. Vicky is there to help us!
I will continue to check on Tweety’s situation and to be sure her sickness is gone. In the meantime, we read on BackYard Chickens about some natural remedies and found that yogurt is helpful. Yogurt has probiotics that give the chicks more friendly bacteria in their intestines to help fight off sicknesses better. We also have dairy cows on our farm, so mom and I made yogurt this morning. We pulled out our new Yogotherm and used it for the first time! We are waiting for it to be ready to mix with their chick starter for dinner tonight! I’m sure I’ll post about what the chicks thought of the yogurt later (with pictures)!
See ya’ soon!
Hey Gage, we homeschool too and Elijah and I are trying to follow your blog when your mom posts it on Chickens for your Soul on FB (I don’t know how to follow blogs, I’m a little bit techno challenged 🙂 ) We certainly enjoyed it today. Elijah went and checked all of our Easter Egger chicks and none of them have pasty butt this morning. But one of our bottle baby goats had the scours this morning and your yogurt reminded me to make some for her. I use my excaliber dehydrator to make yogurt.. it works well 🙂 Elijah is almost 10 and is the youngest in our family. He’s the only kid left at home here; his next oldest sister is in college, the other two live about 150 miles away. Do you do 4-H? He’s wanting to do 4-H with chickens because cows and chickens have to be dehorned and none of ours are.
Nice talking to you! By the way, we liked your post and I shared it on pinterest on our farm page 🙂
Thank you Miss Katharine! You have Easter Eggers, how CUTE! I did not really know about 4-H until you mentioned it. But it does look very fun! Thank you for following me and I will keep you updated on how our chicks are doing.
Thanks for this Gage! I just had to clean one of our baby Rhode Island Red’s bottoms yesterday. I will for sure keep an eye on the situation, and also try the yogurt! Great blog =)
Thank you Miss Amber for the compliment! and we have Rhode Island Reds also.
I put my baby chicks on medicated Purina chick starter it works great I have no problem with pasty butt