Chickie Problems

We've been wanting to move the chicks out of the basement for a few weeks, but with those frighteningly low temperatures last week, that plan had to be put on hold.  Last night we cleaned up the chick area and moved NormaJean and the babies into a smaller crate that we could take outside.  They had to be stuck in there overnight, but today I moved them out to the smaller coop.  

They'll be in there until they're old enough and big enough to be outside in a run.  I think I will need to put a heat lamp in the coop for them this week, but they should be okay otherwise.

The bad news was that I noticed two of the chicks have something wrong with their vents.  One looks much worse than the other.

I brought both of them in the house and gave them a bath in warm water.  They actually were settling in to it and closing their eyes to rest.

They weren't as happy and relaxed when I got their backs wet and cleaned off their vents.

Once we got them cleaned up, we rubbed some Preperation H on their vents as I had that from last year when we had the guinea keet with the vent issues.  We set them in a tub with hand towels while we got things ready for them and they didn't seem to mind.

For now, they're in the living room with a heating pad under the tub and a heater pointed at the tub to keep them warm and get them dried off.  They're moving around and eating and drinking, I just hope that whatever is wrong will heal itself so I can move them out with the other chicks soon.