Day Old Babies on Paper Towels?

[Hawgon]

I just hatched 32 last week. I put mine on Equine Fresh pellets. I have to say I love it. It has worked much better than pine shavings so far. No body is scratching shavings into the water. If one of the pellets does get into the water it just dissolves into a fine crumble like the chick starter. No smell so far and you can't even see the poop. The chicks are scratching through and eating the starter they have kicked out onto the floor of the brooder. I have a chick feeder and a couple of very shallow dishes with feed in them for the smaller chicks as they are reluctant to stick their heads into the feeder in the beginning.

I would highly recommend the pellets. This is my third batch of chicks, and the pellets are working much better than the shavings for me.

I totally agree Caj, much less messy than shavings. My wife also noticed alot less dust around and it smells better. As mine get older I switch out the standart waterers for the nipple ones which even keeps it cleaner. I do use paper towels the first couple of days, just til they can find the food and water and I notice they are all pooping ok...new chicks at www.ustream.tv search for [hawgon]

 

[larca83]

I'm doing paper towels right now on top of about 2-3 inches of pine shavings. My chicks are 4 days old. It's made cleaning the brooder a breeze, I just fold up the poopy paper towel, throw it away and put new ones down. They seemed to get a little bored last night, so I put a couple handfuls of pine shavings on top of the paper towel for them to peck and scratch. They seem to have the hang of it already and know that they shouldn't eat the pine. I like what Izzymoon said above about developing strong legs, I never thought of that. I was thinking of taking the paper towels out tomorrow, but maybe not.

 

[Izzymoon]

look at these gams worth it and it's super easy for a couple weeks ...this is Clara at 5 weeks strong beautiful legs