Dirty feet on chicks

Want Less

Songster
9 Years
Mar 24, 2010
376
6
123
New Bern, NC
I'm new here so... hello!

We've recently jumped into the chicken world and now have 3 Rhode Island Reds and 3 Black Sex Link chicks. They are almost a week old. We have a horse farm and raise organic vegetable gardens in Eastern NC.

We are raising our chicks in a 65 gallon aquarium in our house and have just started taking them out into the backyard for an hour a day to peck around (on warm sunny days). The flooring of the aquarium is newspaper covered in mesh screen (I read on several sites that this was best) and it is thoroughly cleaned out daily. However we find that no matter how clean we keep it, the chicks still get poop stuck to the bottoms of their feet. They try to peck it off sometimes.

My question is, should we be cleaning it off? And if so, how?? Otherwise they are clean...

Thanks for any tips!

--kb
big_smile.png
 
I make sure to pick off any larger clumps from mine....but they are bound to get some stuck to their legs. I don't think it will hurt, but If you really want to you could soak their feet if there's some very dried poo on their legs. Mine have this problem, and I just leave the small smeared poo marks on.
 
Quote:
I'm not super-experienced but have had several batches of new chicks and have done lots of reading of chicken-keeping books and here on BYC and every resource that addresses the issue of brooder flooring has said unequivocally NOT to use newspaper, particularly in the first few weeks of a chicks life. The reason for that is that newspaper is slippery and can cause "Spraddle Leg". I've always used several layers of paper towels over a layer of pine shavings, over a puppy pee pee pad (in case of water spills, it makes clean up easier. The paper towels come off after week one and then the pine shavings remain, being changed when necessary every few days to week or so. I have never had trouble with the poop sticking to their tiny toes b/c the paper towels or pine shavings absorb the moisture, so it's mostly dry when they inevitably step on it.

I hope that helps. It's just my two cents.
smile.png
 
Quote:
I'm not super-experienced but have had several batches of new chicks and have done lots of reading of chicken-keeping books and here on BYC and every resource that addresses the issue of brooder flooring has said unequivocally NOT to use newspaper, particularly in the first few weeks of a chicks life. The reason for that is that newspaper is slippery and can cause "Spraddle Leg". I've always used several layers of paper towels over a layer of pine shavings, over a puppy pee pee pad (in case of water spills, it makes clean up easier. The paper towels come off after week one and then the pine shavings remain, being changed when necessary every few days to week or so. I have never had trouble with the poop sticking to their tiny toes b/c the paper towels or pine shavings absorb the moisture, so it's mostly dry when they inevitably step on it.

I hope that helps. It's just my two cents.
smile.png


The mesh screen is over the newspaper for that reason, because the paper is slippery :)

When I switch over to a different bedding (shavings) maybe that will help keep their feet clean? I plan to do that next week anyway.

Thanks!
 
Quote:
Ok thanks! I wasn't sure how much I should worry about it and if it was normal (I assume baby chicks running free outside probably wouldnt have much of this problem).
 
Quote:
I'm not super-experienced but have had several batches of new chicks and have done lots of reading of chicken-keeping books and here on BYC and every resource that addresses the issue of brooder flooring has said unequivocally NOT to use newspaper, particularly in the first few weeks of a chicks life. The reason for that is that newspaper is slippery and can cause "Spraddle Leg". I've always used several layers of paper towels over a layer of pine shavings, over a puppy pee pee pad (in case of water spills, it makes clean up easier. The paper towels come off after week one and then the pine shavings remain, being changed when necessary every few days to week or so. I have never had trouble with the poop sticking to their tiny toes b/c the paper towels or pine shavings absorb the moisture, so it's mostly dry when they inevitably step on it.

I hope that helps. It's just my two cents.
smile.png


The mesh screen is over the newspaper for that reason, because the paper is slippery :)

When I switch over to a different bedding (shavings) maybe that will help keep their feet clean? I plan to do that next week anyway.

Thanks!

OH, sorry! I misread your quote, I read it to say the newspaper was on top of the mesh. My bad.
 
I've found that using wood shaving bedding to be the easiest and 'cleanest' for the chicks. If things start looking messy just throw a handful of new wood chips in. No daily cleaning. 'No poo stuck on feet and legs.
 
Yes, once you switch to pine shavings, they will have more success cleaning their own feet.

And if you add d.e. to that at some point, you will be delighted with their clean feet. Wonderful stuff.

Edited to say:
welcome-byc.gif
It's great to have you!
 
Last edited:
Hi Krisann!

I always use pine shavings. They work great, and keep the odors down too. They're cheap too....$5.99 for a huge cube of them at TSC.

Sharon
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom