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Latest update, they are on shavings, picking around. They eat a few small pieces but I sprinkled some starter feed and grit and mostly they seem to be having fun scratching around and eating that. They are settling down for a nap now. Looks we jumped that hurdle!

Well, the shavings are labelled pine. I would hope that was accurate! It smells like pine, looks like pine. At any rate they are leaving the shavings alone for the most part now and are all still alive, eating drinking, running around and trying to fly so I think I'm over my jitters about it and...

Okay, trying again. I got chick grit and they are paper towels on top of shavings. They pulled a lot of the shavings from under the sides of the paper. Still ate some of the smaller pieces. I just left it as is. They're a lot bigger than they were a few days ago when I first tried the shavings...

Quote: Excellent question, but yes they definitely are. I have to process it a bit to make it smaller but they had been eating well for almost a week before I tried putting the shavings in there. In fact they are little piggies! Olive, the biggest, has doubled her weight since being a day old...

Thanks! Worth thinking about. It isn't a large box with only the three of them in there. I'm going to let them get used to these few big pieces first and see what happens next.

Took the shavings back out. I put a few of the larger pieces of shavings back in for them to play with. They are sleeping.

I used to work in a pet store and we used it in the bird cages. I can only find enormous bags of it so I'm hestitant to buy it. I tried again and they are still pulling shavings out from under the paper towels. The silkie has found that food tastes much better. The other two are still fighting...

Quote: I am and it is! Those are the bales I buy for my outdoor chickens but I didn't want to use any of those since they've been outside for a while. I'll buy a new bale o use with the chicks and watch them. Thanks for sharing all your insite and experiences everyone!

Okay, I'm going to look for bigger shavings and wait a bit before trying again. I'm going to go broke on paper towels! And I'm going to be doing this all over again in April with 14 more!!!

No, these were from a pet store. I didn't get to Agway where I get the big bags for the coop. It was small animal bedding which may have just been too small?

I wonder if these shavings were too small. The chicks ran around with the big pieces in their mouths and were too funny. There were smaller skinnier pieces that they pecked at and ate.

Wow, guess I will stick with paper towels rather than risk that!

When I have time to sit and watch them this weekend I will try again. They're just so tiny! I'll leave the paper towels on top for a bit so they can get used to the smell of the pine. I know I'm probably just being an over cautious newbie but I couldn't take watching my tiny little silkie baby...

Quote: For now it just seems safer to me. Sigh. It sounded so easy!

My three little chicks are now 5 and 6 days old. I've had them on layers of paper towel on top of some shelf liner. Tonight I tried putting pine shavings in the brooder for the first time. They went nuts. I watched for about 10 minutes and they were definitely eating the smaller pieces they...