Baby chicks pecking walls and breaking ends off beaks

[SeriousDan]

So we have 9 2-week old isa brown chicks (we've had them for 1 week). The brooder is a large cardboard box (900x600mm ish) just for a few weeks while they are young and very small. We noticed a couple of days ago that two of the chicks had broken the ends off their beaks. The chicks all love to peck the walls of the cardboard box, we didn't really think it was a problem. But now around 7 out of 9 chicks have broken the ends of their beaks! The damage is about 2-5mm missing from the ends of the top and/or bottom mandible. There is some little bits of blood on some, but not much.

The brooder had a few small boxes, a feeder they can climb on, a water station and two roosting perches. It has a polycarbonate window that we cut a hole in the box and taped in place. The floor is a sheet that get's changed every day.

We have now draped towels down each of the walls and filled the bottom with some leaves and things to explore.

Will these beak ends heal? Is there anything we did wrong or should be doing now?

I saw in another post that someone recommended using olive oil to soften the beaks so they aren't so brittle, is that a thing?

 

[SeriousDan]

Oh and they have been taken outside for a supervised explore most days for an hour or more.

 

[rosemarythyme]

If it's just the ends of the beaks they should be fine, they'll grow back.

Some broods are just more antsy than others. My last group drove me nuts trying to eat the wall of their wooden brooder. No damaged beaks but they did enough to actually make tiny gouges in the wood.

If you have a secure area they can be kept (coop, run, or a temporary enclosure that you feel is secure enough) and weather/temperatures and your schedule permit, I'd aim to have them outdoors longer at this point as that'll definitely keep them busy. If you can provide some wind breaks and shade (and depending on how cold it is run heat to the location) they can stay outside all day at this age.

 

[SeriousDan]

Oh yeah ok, we let them out a lot more today and they loved it. Kids are planning to do homeschooling from the backyard tomorrow to supervise them and at some point we'll get a more protected outdoor run set up for them.

Appreciate the advice.

 

[SourRoses]

I'm having trouble imagining chicks being able to damage their beaks on cardboard. They're pretty resilient things, and cardboard is easy for them to destroy (mine have).

One thing I'm thinking is, since it sounds like you didn't have the chicks for the first week of their life, perhaps the previous caretakers attempted to file their beaks and left the edges unfinished and vulnerable to further damage?
Or perhaps they didn't have a properly balanced feed and poor nutrition led to beak damage?
Do you have any pics of the beak damage perhaps?