How early do they establish pecking order?

[goochgirl]

I have 2 chicks in my "brooder" (read; cardboard box). The Americana is significantly larger than the Wyandotte, so I'm assuming older, but still within a week old. She also has some wing feathers developed. She pecks at the smaller one constantly to the point of even taking food from her mouth. Is this normal chick behavior?

 

[HerbiLady]

Hi!

Taking food from the other chick is normal enough (at least it seems that way with my chicks!) ...how bad is she pecking the other one?

I think it might be kind of hard with just two chicks...like there's no one else to focus on?

 

[goochgirl]

Hmmm... should I put a mirror in there to double the number of chicks? We could only get 2, we are flying under the radar here.

 

[HerbiLady]

Quote:
I totally understand about only getting two if that's all you can have...just thinking you may have to try to get it to focus on some other stuff besides its little buddy. A mirror might help...it would be fun to watch it interact with itself in the mirror at any rate and I think as long as it doesn't wear itself out with the chicken in the mirror it would be good.

Make sure they have fun stuff to do...I'm probably not the best for figuring out chicken entertainment since this is my first brood since ~ well ~ many moons ago! And currently, mine seem more interested in each other's feathers than my paltry forms of entertainment. Buggers.

For now, I give mine roosts to hop on, a couple different places to eat (one feeder, one open tray), I put their grit up on a brick at another level, and I give them dandelion leaves and bigger veg-type stuff so that they have to work at it rather than gobble it up immediately. I make sure their litter is deep enough to be entertaining as well and I put stuff in there for them to scratch and find.

That's all I can think of...I'm sorry, probably not much help!

 

[goochgirl]

Thanks, that was a big help. I was wondering about them being bored. My only experience with birds is parakeets and Parrots, but they always had toys to play with. We did put the parrot in front of Sesame Street for his favorite hour of the day, but I don't see it holding my peeps attention. I'll try a mirror and a couple of toys. This young, what kinds of veg should I give them? I only have some bedding, which right now is covered in newspaper that we change a couple of times each day, and chick feed. What else am I missing?