I’ve had luck preventing pasty bottoms (a.k.a. “pasty butt”) in shipped chicks with some observation and adjustments to my care routine in the first few days. My chicks hatched here at home rarely if ever develop pasty. They are moved from the incubator within 48 hours and offered water first.

I don’t offer food right away—I hold off until after the chicks start to show interest in pecking around the brooder. With chicks pulled straight from the incubator, this can take up to a day while they rest and continue to absorb the yolk. They get chick grit in their food from day one.

With shipped chicks, we often talk about getting them on heat right away. Heat is vital, but if we don’t get them drinking, that’s when the pasty butt shows up.

I use a vitamin and electrolyte mix in the water for the first 3 to 7 days after chicks hit the brooder, according to the package directions. Most of these products require being mixed fresh every day.

My first task after getting shipped chicks home is to dip their beaks in water to show them where the water is. Then I put them under the heat and set the water close, where they can reach it easily. I leave them on water only for an hour or two, and I monitor to make sure everyone has had multiple chances to drink. Only then do I offer food (again, it has chick-sized grit in it from the start).

Making sure the water doesn’t run out in the chick brooder is important, as is making sure the chicks can come and go out from under the heat easily. I have noticed a correlation in pasty butt with chicks who spend more time under the heat and less time drinking. 

I check every chick’s bottom daily while I’m changing bedding, food and water. if I find a pasty, I’ve found a gentle spray with warm water if you have a sprayer is the fastest and easiest way to clean them, followed by a short stint under a warm (not too hot!) blow dryer.

The hens started laying like crazy in mid-March after an especially trying winter here in Southeast Ohio.

A lot of people assume handling chicks is mostly about making them easier to manage later. This study suggests it may be more important than that.

Researchers found that chicks spent more time in spaces where they had previously experienced gentle handling, like soft talking and slow stroking, compared to spaces where a person had simply been present but not interacted with them. In other words, the chicks were not just less afraid of people. They seemed to actively associate gentle human contact with comfort and safety.

For backyard flock owners, that lines up with what many people already notice: chicks that are handled calmly and consistently often seem less stressed and easier to work with as they grow. Plus, what’s better therapy than holding a fluffy, warm chick? (poultryworld.net)

The daffodils have come and gone at my place, but the tulips are still holding their own. If you are driving the back roads in Southeast Ohio right now, the first thing you will notice is the redbud. Those bright pink-purple trees are showing up along woods edges, creek banks, and fence rows before most trees have even leafed out. These trees were important to settlement of this region of Appalachia, where they indicated fertile soil for farming.

The middle school drama club had just wrapped up two nights of the hilarious “When Bad Things Happen to Good Actors,” and the kids were absolutely outstanding. My daughter brought home the flowers she was given after the show.

The next day, those flowers became a butterfly Airbnb.

I found this newly emerged swallowtail trapped in the chicken pen. It had managed to fly in through the larger fence gaps but couldn’t figure out how to get back out through the netting overhead and was exhausted. After some sugar water and an overnight on the bouquet on the kitchen table, it flew off into sunny skies the next day.