Peeps in Europe!

[abpatchy]

My chicks are growing fast! However, they all seem to have manure balls on their toes. I kept them on newspapers, which I replaced twice a day, but that clearly wasn't often enough (I did it just before work and right after getting home, but that's about 10 hours in between) I put them on pine shavings today, which I can hopefully just scoop out with a litterbox scooper regularly. In the meantime, they're greatly enjoying scratching around in it, it seems

I'm gonna read up on safe ways to remove the manure balls, but any tips you guys might have would be appreciated!View attachment 2695710View attachment 2695712

Cute!! Yes, they do grow fast! Sometimes I can see the difference between when I see them last in the evening to when I see them in the morning.

About the dirty feet. It all depends how big the dirt is on their feet. You might just be able to rub it off when it is stuck on their claw. Or carefully with a wet cloth and wipe it off. But usually I don't worry about dirty feet. They'll just step into the next poop 2 minutes later.

 

[chickengr]

I read comb issues are best breeded out using a cock with a good comb, the other way around with a hen is rarely successful.

with my marans I could not get chicks with good combs. roo had a good comb and hens had really bad combs.

 

[BDutch]

@LoreWalker I have sand in the coop and only shavings (with hay) where they sleep. Sand is great, it packs and dries the poop, it’s great for cleaning their feet and you can sift out the poop.

 

[Erba]

with my marans I could not get chicks with good combs. roo had a good comb and hens had really bad combs.

probably because the hens had the dominant comb gene and were canceling out the rooster's. This can also happen.

 

[LoreWalker]

@BDutch Thanks! I do notice that the coop with our adult hens doesn't have as much issue with sticky poops. They have a mixture of sand and shavings in there. But with horror stories of chicks eating too much substrate and sand, I got worried and stuck to something 'safe' for the first two weeks give or take. They are doing fine on the pine shavings for now, but I might add some sand to the cage as well and mix it up.

But they should be able to go outside pretty soon anyway, especially if the weather keeps up the way it does at the moment!

 

[BDutch]

My chicks stayed in the nestbox area in the coop for the first week. In the extra space I had an old bath towel for them to walk around, wich gave a good grip to their wobbly legs. After a week the mamma’s took the chicks downstairs to the sand floor.
I always had my chicks going out to soil or sand after 3-7 days. Sand is no issue after they leave the nest. It’s natural to go out and scratch in the dirt. Just imagine what wild chickens would do.

 

[abpatchy]

I am sure that you can't just say one rooster with good comb will give you good combs. Genes will come out in the following generations. What if you use a rooster that happened to have a good comb but his father and grandfather didn't.
I had last years rooster... he was my life insurance... and that was his name. I wouldn't have kept him at all... but at that time the chicks were fighting coccidia. And I kept him because he was good.. only the comb was so so... his second ridge was the same size as the first. So he had 2 small ridges and 2 larger ridges in his com. Well... one of his nephew has the exact same comb. Exact! And he is a nephew not a son!

 

[abpatchy]

My chicks stayed in the nestbox area in the coop for the first week. In the extra space I had an old bath towel for them to walk around, wich gave a good grip to their wobbly legs. After a week the mamma’s took the chicks downstairs to the sand floor.
I always had my chicks going out to soil or sand after 3-7 days. Sand is no issue after they leave the nest. It’s natural to go out and scratch in the dirt. Just imagine what wild chickens would do.

It's different though when you have chicks hatched in an incubator. There is no mom to teach them what is safe to eat and what not. I have heard of chicks eating sand and dying because they ate too much. Same with bedding. I know my chicks last year ate some of the hemp bedding. This year I had them on terrarium beech chips. They work great, but awfully expensive. At least for the amount of chicks that I hatch. The good part: I can put the used chips in the garden as mulch. And it was big enough that the chicks wouldn't eat them.... but small enough for them to walk on. But I agree, they should be exposed to things early on. My little 3 week old chicks are running outside with the 6 week old chicks now that the weather is nice enough.
I have not found the perfect bedding for chicks.

 

[LoreWalker]

It's different though when you have chicks hatched in an incubator. There is no mom to teach them what is safe to eat and what not. I have heard of chicks eating sand and dying because they ate too much. Same with bedding. I know my chicks last year ate some of the hemp bedding. This year I had them on terrarium beech chips. They work great, but awfully expensive. At least for the amount of chicks that I hatch. The good part: I can put the used chips in the garden as mulch. And it was big enough that the chicks wouldn't eat them.... but small enough for them to walk on. But I agree, they should be exposed to things early on. My little 3 week old chicks are running outside with the 6 week old chicks now that the weather is nice enough.
I have not found the perfect bedding for chicks.

My chicks stayed in the nestbox area in the coop for the first week. In the extra space I had an old bath towel for them to walk around, wich gave a good grip to their wobbly legs. After a week the mamma’s took the chicks downstairs to the sand floor.
I always had my chicks going out to soil or sand after 3-7 days. Sand is no issue after they leave the nest. It’s natural to go out and scratch in the dirt. Just imagine what wild chickens would do.

Like Abpatchy said, my chicks hatched in an incubator. So they don't have a mother hen to teach them what to eat and what not... They tried to eat the strips of newspaper they managed to tear off, and I saw some trying to eat pince chavings when I put those in their cage yesterday, as well. I have beech chips, but with the size I have, I doubt it would make much of a difference as the chips are small enough to eat all the same.

I'm not quite sure when to transfer them to the coop. The eldest are 2 weeks old tomorrow, I currently have them in one of those indoor rabbit cages in the house. I have a cage ready in the coop for them to go in, but the coop itself isn't insulated or anything. They'd get their heat plate and I could combine it with a heat lamp too, but still.
The main reason for wanting to put them in the coop (aside from freeing up space in the house, haha) is to hopefully safely get the adult hens and rooster used to them as they grow, so that they can be introduced into the flock safely, sooner. At the rate they're growing, they'll quickly outgrow the cage I have set up for them in the coop. (We initially planned to hatch our bantam cross eggs, not the large wyandottes and orps we ended up getting)

 

[abpatchy]

Like Abpatchy said, my chicks hatched in an incubator. So they don't have a mother hen to teach them what to eat and what not... They tried to eat the strips of newspaper they managed to tear off, and I saw some trying to eat pince chavings when I put those in their cage yesterday, as well. I have beech chips, but with the size I have, I doubt it would make much of a difference as the chips are small enough to eat all the same.

I'm not quite sure when to transfer them to the coop. The eldest are 2 weeks old tomorrow, I currently have them in one of those indoor rabbit cages in the house. I have a cage ready in the coop for them to go in, but the coop itself isn't insulated or anything. They'd get their heat plate and I could combine it with a heat lamp too, but still.
The main reason for wanting to put them in the coop (aside from freeing up space in the house, haha) is to hopefully safely get the adult hens and rooster used to them as they grow, so that they can be introduced into the flock safely, sooner. At the rate they're growing, they'll quickly outgrow the cage I have set up for them in the coop. (We initially planned to hatch our bantam cross eggs, not the large wyandottes and orps we ended up getting)

I move my chicks into the coop when they are about 9 days old. They need to get their coccidia immunization that day... and then they are supposed to stay on the same bedding for 6 weeks. I don't want to move the bedding so that's when they move. I never had an issue with that, even when we had minus temperatures. As long as they have a heating plate or lamp they will be fine.
Now I would not mix chicks or young hens with adults when they did not have a mother to introduce them and protect them. They will get picked on severely. If you can separate them to where they can see the adults and once they start laying or are just about to you can introduce them to the flock.
I tried to put my Bielefelder hens with the adults. They were pretty big at that time but not laying yet. They were picked on pretty bad. Or when I moved younger hens in with hens that were already laying. Also they were being picked on. The one hen I still have and to this day she is being picked on. Now that might just be a coincidence but I would be careful.