Entertainment??

[adeechickluv]

I have four chicks as of yesterday. They are all doing quite well; they seem warm enough. Our brooder box is 2'x3'. We have a waterer and feeder in there. Do they need any entertainment? And what sort of thing would work for them to play around with?

 

[Purple Veg*n]

Sorry, I couldn't help but laugh at this. With four of them in the brooder, they should entertain each other. If you just have to buy something for them, I'd look at the stuff for parakeets at your local W*l-M*rt, making sure that they couldn't tear anything part and eat it or get tangled up in it and strangled.

 

[adeechickluv]

OK. Thanks ...
They shuffle their feet around to get underneath the litter to the cardboard. Then they peck at it. It is so cute!!
I have picked all of them up (the lady at the desk where I bought them from says handling them makes them friendlier as they get older) except the Plymouth Rock. She pecks at me whenever I reach for her. All of the chicks are supposed to be 5-10 days old, and the other 3 look about a week old. but the PR is almost twice their size. She dominates in the brooder!
Sorry for all the rambling; I watched the chicks for about an hour this morning!

 

[gryeyes]

I imagined the topic heading referred to the Entertainment WE get from watching our chicks in the brooder. Oh, and watching the grown up chickens in their runs. I love to watch the babies scratch around in the litter, looking for feed that got away from them. Or do the dust bath thing!!! Adorable and hysterically funny at the same time.

Treat time is entertainment for them - give 'em some mealworms and watch the action!

I do have an empty toilet paper tube in the brooder with them. They like to mess about with it, poke their heads inside the tube, stand on top of it like a log-roller, kick it around.

There's also an old wooden dowel thing that used to be a hanger on the wall for towels, or bathrobes, or sumpin' like that; I've put it in the brooder as a "roost" for the chicks. They enjoy roosting on it like Big Chickens. During the day, it's a great jungle-gym type thing for them.

Other than that, chicks really don't need toys to "enrich" their little lives whilst in the brooder. They're not going to be in there forever, like caged birds.
And they're their own entertainment, as another poster has mentioned.

 

[adeechickluv]

Ahh ... you mentioned meal worms. WHERE CAN I GET MEAL WORMS??! People looked at me like I was crazy when I asked at the feed store.

 

[gryeyes]

Pet stores, or bait shops. The feed store closest to me carries them, but it's not the store where I bought the chicks. I just buy my dog & cat food there, or pine shavings if I run out before a weekend (can't get to my favorite feed store before they close during the work week). Plus the mealworms. Much cheaper than at PetSmart, even.