Pasty Butt

Pasty Butt

March 6, 2022

(Don't freak out! - This is a normal, healthy chick behind.)

Pasty butt, also called "pasting up" or "pasted vent" is a fairly common, but potentially life-threatening, condition that can occur when the vent of a baby chick gets clogged with dried feces. 

If not treated quickly, it can be fatal because the baby chick is unable to eliminate its poop and it will quickly get stopped up and die. 

Fortunately it's easy to detect, treat and even prevent, but since it's so common, it is something that you should be aware of if you're just starting out with your baby chicks and that every backyard chicken keeper needs to be aware of.

Pasty butt is the condition in which a chick's soft droppings stuck to the fine down around their vent and then harden and get stuck in the opening of the baby chick’s vent. The feces dries up and literally stops up the chick so it can’t poop. The dried-up feces acts like a cork, creating a plug so they can't excrete their feces. 

Sadly, it can kill the chick fairly quickly if it's not treated quickly, so knowing how to spot and treat pasty butt is a critical part of caring for baby chicks. 

To check a chick for pasty butt, just flip the chick over and check the area right under its tail. That's the vent. If you see brown dried droppings, then that chick has pasty butt.

Be sure to check each chick at least a few times a day for the first few days.

Pasty butt is generally caused by stress, being chilled or uneven temperature changes. Chicks that hatch under a mother hen rarely suffer from pasty butt. Pasty butt affects mainly:

• chicks that are hatched in an incubator 
• chicks that are shipped through the mail 

Fortunately, pasty butt is very easy to treat. What you need:

• Q-tip or cotton swab
• Small pair of scissors
• Vegetable or olive oil

Moisten a Q-tip with some warm water, then gently swap the area to wipe away and remove the dried feces. Once the vent is cleared, use a clean Q-tip or cotton swap to dab a bit of oil around the vent area to prevent further clogging. 

For stubborn clumps, you can carefully snip away some of the down around the vent with the scissors, but be careful not to inadvertently cut the chick's skin, and don't pull or yank the down out. You don't want to hurt the chick.

Continue to check and clean any more stuck-on feces and monitor the afflicted chick for the next few days to be sure the condition doesn't recur, and swab with a moistened Q-tip again if it does. The condition should clear up in 3-4 days.

There are several other things you can do to prevent pasty butt:

• add a bit of ground raw oats or cornmeal to the chick feed, just a sprinkle on top should do it
• add probiotic powder to the feed to balance gut bacteria and help prevent diarrhea

• add 1 teaspoon of apple cider vinegar per quart of water and offer that to your chicks when you first bring them home along with plain water

I hope this post was a good guide to finding, treating, and preventing pasty butt!