Chicks eating their aspen bedding

[mausbytes]

First-timer here! We just moved our chicks out of their initial puppy-pad-lined brooder into a bigger space, where they now have aspen shavings that they have been thrilled to dig around in. I was pretty confident they knew what their food looked and tasted like at this point (they're around a week old, though I don't know the exact number of days), and they are eating and drinking in their new enclosure - but they're eating a ton of their aspen bedding, too.

I've sprinkled their food with grit, and am about to put out a full dish of it, too, but I'm not sure how worried I should be. Should I cover the shavings back up for another day or so? I'm worried about impaction, but am not sure just how worried I should be.

 

[thecatumbrella]

First-timer here! We just moved our chicks out of their initial puppy-pad-lined brooder into a bigger space, where they now have aspen shavings that they have been thrilled to dig around in. I was pretty confident they knew what their food looked and tasted like at this point (they're around a week old, though I don't know the exact number of days), and they are eating and drinking in their new enclosure - but they're eating a ton of their aspen bedding, too.

I've sprinkled their food with grit, and am about to put out a full dish of it, too, but I'm not sure how worried I should be. Should I cover the shavings back up for another day or so? I'm worried about impaction, but am not sure just how worried I should be.

Mine also eat shavings, and I do the same thing as you (provide grit in a dish, sprinkled around the enclosure, and a bit on their food). It's pretty frustrating, but chickens mostly explore with their mouth, so it makes sense.

Do you have pictures of the bedding? I'm curious how small the pieces are.

 

[mausbytes]

Mine also eat shavings, and I do the same thing as you (provide grit in a dish, sprinkled around the enclosure, and a bit on their food). It's pretty frustrating, but chickens mostly explore with their mouth, so it makes sense.

Do you have pictures of the bedding? I'm curious how small the pieces are.

It's pretty small The only bedding my local farm store had for chickens specifically was straw, which I know isn't good for chicks (any long, grass-like stuff can get tangled in their little intestines so young, I think) so I grabbed this from where you'd get rabbit or other small-mammal bedding. I may go out and see if anywhere else has bedding with larger shavings, to see if that might help, too.

In the meantime, I put out extra grit and covered a bunch of the shavings with paper towels. Limiting their access has seemed to help redirect them to mostly eat their food so far.

 

[thecatumbrella]

It's pretty small The only bedding my local farm store had for chickens specifically was straw, which I know isn't good for chicks (any long, grass-like stuff can get tangled in their little intestines so young, I think) so I grabbed this from where you'd get rabbit or other small-mammal bedding. I may go out and see if anywhere else has bedding with larger shavings, to see if that might help, too.

In the meantime, I put out extra grit and covered a bunch of the shavings with paper towels. Limiting their access has seemed to help redirect them to mostly eat their food so far.

Good idea with the paper towel. The novelty of having bedding should wear off in a couple days. If you can manage to find large flake shavings, they're worth the switch. The chicks will still pick them up, but there's not much to eat besides the fines at the bottom.