HELP!!! Should my peeps be allowed to eat paper towels?

[LlanoLonghorn]

Somehow they seem to empty the feeder almost instantly and have all their food on the floor. I just thought that maybe they would rather have it there in the first place.

 

[gumpsgirl]

It's the scratching instinct that causes that.

You might need to look into a different type of feeder if they are able to get into the one you have and scratch all of the feed out so easily.

 

[conejofarm]

I had my chicks on wood chips and they were eating those so I switched to paper towels on top of newspaper. That was fine until I bought a less expensive paper towel that had a printed design. They started to peck at the design and began eating the paper so I went back to plain white paper towels. But now they have the habit & they eat bits of paper while scratching around. It seems better than eating wood chips, what do others think? Or should I try corn cob bedding as someone suggested in another thread? I have six chicks and they're 2 weeks old, in a cardboard stove box. They're eating their food very well & growing. Thanks for any advice.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

I've always used chick scratch in the brooder sprinkled over the shavings for the express purpose of getting them to scratch it all up and keep it fluffy. This keeps the manure from caking up and helps to keep the shavings dry. About every other day I'll sprinkle rolled oats for this.

If the bedding is really wet you need to get it all out of there as soon as possible then spread dry shavings again. Wet bedding is an invitation to coccidiosis.

.....Alan.

 

[TXmom]

I've been having the same issues with my chicks. They were scratching all the food out of the feeder and into the pine shavings, so I put a couple layers of paper towels under the feeder, thinking they would just eat the food off the paper towels instead of losing it all in the shavings...Well, they scratched and shredded the paper towels and started eating them.

I've been fishing the shredded paper out of the brooder for several days now. So I figured it out...I took a small cardboard box and cut the sides down to about 2 inches. I put the feeder in the now-shallow box, and now they scratch the food out of the feeder into the box, and they eat it out of the box. They have not yet been able to shred the cardboard

So far, so good.

 

[meowteri2]

Mine tear a strip of newspaper then run around to be chased with it. Then another pics it up and that one gets chased lol.