When you are raising baby chicks from their early stages of development, your chicks could develop something called “pasty butt.”
How to Prevent Pasty Butt
Chickens have one hole that is used for laying eggs, pooping, urinating and mating. This hole is called the cloacal vent. A chick’s mother hen keeps her chicks’ cloacal vents clear, but if you are raising the chicks yourself, the vent can become clogged and you end up “pasty butt.” I have read that this can happen during shipping – some say from temperature changes, some say from stress. A chick can actually die from pasty butt because it cannot poop until the pasty butt is cleared. The result: you need to clean your chicks’ bottoms. Use a warm wash cloth and move it slowly on the chicks’ bottoms. You can use a Q-tip and olive oil or mineral oil to rub around the vent and surrounding area.
How to Clean Pasty Butt?
Unfortunately, it can be a bit of a problem to clean pasty butt in baby chickens. Some people actually run the pasty butts under warm water to help dissolve the poo. Make sure your room is well heated. Dry the chicks off before putting them with the other chicks so their bottoms do not draw attention. You may end up plucking some of the pasty goop, irritating the skin, which then may cause other chicks to peck at it.
Check your chicks’ bottoms daily for the first few days to look for buildup, because this is the only way I know how to prevent pasty butt!
When your chicks first arrive, give them sugar water the first day to help increase their energy levels; feed them chick starter food and scrambled egg. Yes, egg. I know it sounds cannibalistic.
In the meantime, watch those chicken butts! This YouTube video shows what it looks like and demonstrates the cleaning technique:
So as you can tell in the video, or if you have tried to clean pasty butt by yourself, you will know that the poop is very sticky, and the chicken down is very fluffy, so this can be a sticky situation!
Be very gentle with the little chicks as they can stress easily, and are very fragile when they are only a few days old. But they don’t mind you handling them gently, in fact they will respond quite nicely to your touching and grooming them. If you have ever thought about keeping your chickens as pets – they will become very tame if you handle them gently and frequently. Click here to read our article on keeping your favorite chickens as family pets – yes chickens can be adorable little pets!
Once you become comfortable with handling the small chicks, they will not struggle as much, and this makes the job of looking after them so much easier, and makes cleaning the pasty butt much easier. In fact the whole family will adore the chicks when they are small, and little kids will love having the chicks cheeping around the house!
Click Here to find out the best way to look after your chickens!
The best part is when the chicks become friendly and comfortable with people, and they will actually come to you to peck and play around. Well mainly come looking for food, but it is a good idea to encourage everyone in the family to help look after the chickens.
But the main idea is to keep your chicks clean and happy and healthy, so watch out for their pasty butt!
1. problem come from customers pinpoint to my hatchery because of pasty butt.
All this happen after few days after delivery’.
We just got our very first chicks ever. I brought them home and 2 are just a mess. They had a ball of poop the size of a quarter stuck to their ends and I’m sure they are sick. They can’t even stand up! I washed them with warm water but their bottoms are just so raw looking now. Can I put anything on them or do they heal on their own!
Mary wrote directly to Melissa: “It sure does sound like pasty butt. Did you continue to soak them? Although their bottoms do look so raw, they do usually heal. How are they doing?” and Melissa answered with this good news: “They are doing great! We’ve had them for just under a week now and it’s shocking how fast they are growing! We are just in love. The two that were the worst off still need their little bums cleaned daily but they are doing really well I think. I had a neighbor lady come over and look at them. I didn’t end up putting anything on them and their feathers are regrowing well. I’m sure it was that dreaded pasty butt. I hope they get over it soon, but I’ve been told it can take a few weeks. I did get great info from your site though, so thanks! It’s amazing how fun being a hobby farmer is already. Thanks, Melissa”
My week old chick has a mild case of pasty butt, I have cleaned it with warm water and a cloth as the chick us having to be hand reared due to mum abandoning it. It is very quiet afterwards and just sitting there, is this normal?
Hi Yve,
Good on you for taking care of this little chick! And also for looking after Pasty Butt before it gets worse.
Some Chicks seem to go quiet for a while, and others seem to love it… Make sure you place it back in a nice warm place, or heat lamp or whatever is available.
So long as they keep warm and are well fed, they should be happy. If you don’t look after them, the alternative is much worse!
Good Luck