Chick Entertainment - Question

[IamRainey]

Blooie-

You have the BEST advice and the BEST way of explaining it!

 

[cfbandme]

Thank you all!! When I got home I went out to our yard and shifted some dirt onto a paper plate (hubby thought I was crazy for a minute) I put a couple of small twigs on it and put it at the end of our brooder box - shortly after I sat it down I already had two brave girls scratching around!! I’m new at chickies and want to make sure I’m doing everything right! BYC people are all the best!!

 

[chickengeorgeto]

We have 4 day old chicks in our brooder - and as a first time chick-mamma I'm a little worried. We recieved an "extra" chick with our order and she seems to be picked on by our other 12 RIR's. I wonder if I can put things on the floor of the brooder for them to play with or investigate during the day to keep them from picking on each other.....

You already have objects of entertainment available to your flock. Chickens entertain themselves by picking on, pecking at, or bossing around their weaker flock-mates.

 

[Blooie]

Boredom is pretty much a non-issue here. Their brooder is a wire pen out in the run. All day long they interact with the adults through the wire, have their heating pad to climb on and play on, plenty of fresh air, sunshine, and bedding to dig around in when I toss scratch for them and the Bigs. The dirt clump is in there, bugs to chase, a couple of different sized branches, and they find plenty to do. They only have the daylight hours to fill, since they tuck under Mama Heating Pad and sleep in total darkness all night through. By 3 weeks we’ve started integration, they are totally integrated and out in the yard with the rest of the flock and the brooder pen is completely taken down and removed at 4 weeks. So they are never facing solid brooder walls, lights 24/7, and learn quickly how to be chickens.

But every so often I randomly toss something new in their brooder to investigate, like a marble or two, or a suet cage full of weeds or some such. I think stuff like that makes them more confident and much calmer.

 

[Blooie]

Blooie-

You have the BEST advice and the BEST way of explaining it!

What a nice thing to say! Thank you!

 

[chickengeorgeto]

They were - we had them vaccinated for both cocci and marek's ... but I didn't know anything about a "quarantin" period!!!!... the hatchery never said anything - except that I read here on BYC NOT to feed them medicated feed....

The cocci vaccine is a killed or weakened version of the live cocci single cell organism. By feeding medicated chick feed you are killing off or rendering the cocci vaccination worthless because you are killing off the cocci organism before the weakened organism can confer protection to your chicks.

 

[IamRainey]

My pleasure, babe! Thanks for sharing so freely and interestingly!