Chicken Butt

Chicken Butt

We had a scare yesterday when we checked on our baby chicks. Our super healthy little girls suddenly had poopy butts. From our preparation research we knew to soak the butt with hot water using a rag or cotton ball. We quickly realized it was a difficult task to soak their rump without getting the whole baby chicken soaked and we were worried about dropping their temperature too low. After a few tries we found that hot water and a rag would do the trick and getting a good hold on the chick would keep it from squirming and getting wet. We patiently soaked the plug and cleaned the area and then placed them back under their light to dry off. Next step – research how to prevent this from happening again!

We found that plugged butts are normal with baby chicks for many reasons. Sometimes it is just the stress of being shipped. It can be caused by being hatched in an incubator or being kept too hot. It could be too little grit in their food. Because it is so common, it is really important to keep an eye on those chicken butts and help unplug them when need be. Apparently baby chicks eat their mother hen’s droppings and the good bacteria helps with digestion. A way to supplement the chicks and help prevent it from happening again is to give them the yolk of a hardboiled egg. At first I was shocked but it does make sense. In the egg they lived off the yolk.

So moving forward we added more grit to their food. The grit will help grind up the food in their bellies. We gave them crumbled yolk from a hardboiled egg and we put olive oil on their rumps to help keep that area from getting gunked up. We will do chicken butt checks twice a day and hope our girls get through this!