My Biel chicks are closing in on 3 weeks old now and I have to say, they are SMART little birds. I've kept them in the same brooder in the same room under the same circumstances as all the other chicks I've raised and these guys are figuring things out much faster than any of my other chicks have. They began perching on the edge of the brooder nearly a full week before any of my other breeds, figured out how to reach the top of my furniture (how in the heck did you get all the way up there???), and nearly all of them, when they find themselves on the floor instead of perched on their intended target, hop to the door and call out to me. They don't run away when I show up and just hop onto my hand so I can put them back on the brooder edge. And several of them already seem to have learned their names. I'm just blown away.
They weren't too bad to do. I used a folded blanket and laid them on their sides inside the blanket with only their head sticking out. I used end-cutters(dikes) to trim with and 100 grit sandpaper to smooth them up.
