How old does a chick have to be to attach pinless peepers?

[CritterHill]

I have a 4 week old BR that likes to pick bloody holes in her brooder mates. I separated her when this happened the first time a few weeks ago.

I have tried putting her back with her buddies on a number of occasions, but she chases them around and plucks their feathers and eats them

So I ordered pinless peepers and received them in the mail today, but they look pretty big for a 4 week old. Any idea what the minimum age should be to use these things?

 

[yotetrapper]

Not sure, never heard of using them on chickens. You might ask in the pheasant section though, pheasant people use em....

 

[CMV]

I have only used them on my 1+ y.o. birds because they are large. I have a BO with a mild facial deformity (tiny, misshapen nostrils) and I cannot use them on her because they obstruct her breathing and cause bleeding and discomfort when applied. I tried using them on my neighbor's less than 1 y.o. hens and several caused bleeding during application. We stopped and re-evaluated the efficacy of the peepers vs. the risk of injury, and decided to forgo the use of the peepers. There are smaller peepers you might want to look into. They have several sizes available, if I'm not mistaken. For such a young bird you may need a smaller set of peepers, like the game fowl peepers mentioned by yotetrapper.

Good luck.

 

[shuizar209]

I dont know anything about pinless peepers but maybe its something nutritional. Feather eating is usually a protein thing.

 

[CritterHill]

Yeah, I thought about the nutrition aspect, but they are all eating Purina start and grow, so in theory their diet should be fine.

I have been keeping evil-chick separated and putting her back in with her friends only when I can keep an eye on them, then separating her again if I see pecking. Well, they've been together since 9AM today and *crosses fingers* so far so good. Ok, I haven't been watching them the whole time, but I haven't heard any screaming and no obvious feather loss.

So maybe I won't need the peepers after all. Going to put them out in a pen in the coop today to get used to the big girls.

Oh, I also picked up an "Uncle Jimmy's Pecker Wrecker" at the feed store. It's a big molasses smelling block of seeds and stuff to give them something to peck at that isn't each other.

Wish me luck...

 

[poodlepill]

It wouldnt hurt to up the protien just to see.

 

[patman75]

Adding the feather eating bird to the rest of your flock will not get it to stop. I increased their protien and added peepers to the bad girls at about 22 weeks. It stopped the feather eating.

I might want to consider just culling it. You dont want you other birds to pick up on this bad habbit and it is only 4 weeks old. Nip the problem in the bud early.

 

[CritterHill]

Hmm, my kids have been feeding it bologna scraps from their lunch this week. Wonder if there is a correlation between that and the fact that it seems to have stopped with this behavior so far this weekend?

Believe me, I would love to cull it. But my 7 year old has bonded with this chick. Takes it on walks out side, wraps it in her poncho and sings to it. Culling it would cause the child to move out of the house and in with the neighbors :| Hay wait, maybe you are onto something here!

I actually tried to pick up some game bird starter to feed this gal to up her protein, but the guy in the feed store refused to sell it to me insisting it would be bad for the chick. Maybe I'll go to a different feed store and not mention it is for a chick.

 

[CMV]

Do not feed the chick bologna. It is full of salt. Salt kills birds in large quantities.

Hey... maybe you have the answer to your problems! Keep feeding the bird bologna. It dies unexpectedly, and you can tell your child, "Sorry, sweetie. These things happen sometimes..."

Seriously, upping the protein they are eating may be helpful or may just be expensive. Feather picking starts out as an easily resolved nutritional issue but rapidly becomes a behavioral problem which is not so easily resolved. They pick just because they can, not because they need to.

I have a feather picker (or pickers) that I have tried to break. I have a large flock, so figuring out who's picking is challenging. The amount of eggs I have pumped back into this flock to rectify any nutritional imbalances is staggering. I have lost a significant amount of money trying to resolve this issue, but I have realized that I need to take more drastic measures. Now that the weather is warmer I intend to locate the picker or pickers in the flock, tag them, and process the lot. Nutrition and boredom play a role in the start of feather picking, but when the bad habit becomes ingrained, it is impossible to break, and the only sure way of dealing with it is to cull the offenders.

 

[sben451]

I used the pinless peepers last summer on some EE roos who developed the feather picking problem. I did feed more protein, but still had to use the peepers. If I remember correctly, my young roos were about 3-4 mos. old. The peepers were very easy to put on the roos and they really stopped the feather picking. The peepers fell off after a month or two, but by then they were no longer needed.