Pine shavings and baby chicks question

[socalchickens76]

We just picked up five baby chicks yesterday. They were born on April 9th so they are 3 days old. We put pine shavings in their brooder today and they keep pecking at the shavings. I'm afraid of them eating it and want to remove the shavings.

Did I put the shavings in too early?? Will it cause a problem if they ingest some?

 

[Ridgerunner]

It is not unusual for baby chicks to peck and eat about anything. It comes down to how many shavings they eat. It is possible for their crops to become full and impacted or for their gizzard to become blocked. With the crop it is a matter of how many they eat. With the gizzard it helps if they have grit so they can grind up the shavings and let them pass. Grit is small bits of rock they use in the gizzard to grind things. You can buy grit at the feed store (at their age get the chick grit), use a rough sand with fairly large grains, or let them peck at dirt that has bits of rock.

Many people put paper towels over the wood shavings for the first several days until they learn what their food is. Paper towels can make clean-up easy. I don't use wood shavings in the brooder but still give them a small cup of dirt from the run to introduce grit by day 2 or 3 in the brooder just to be safer.

 

[50-45-1]

Well, at 3 days old, they should know what their food looks like.
Were they on shavings when you got them?

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I've always had excellent results with puppy pee pads. Much sturdier than paper towels, easy to change out every evening, very absorbent, no dust.

 

[socalchickens76]

It is not unusual for baby chicks to peck and eat about anything. It comes down to how many shavings they eat. It is possible for their crops to become full and impacted or for their gizzard to become blocked. With the crop it is a matter of how many they eat. With the gizzard it helps if they have grit so they can grind up the shavings and let them pass. Grit is small bits of rock they use in the gizzard to grind things. You can buy grit at the feed store (at their age get the chick grit), use a rough sand with fairly large grains, or let them peck at dirt that has bits of rock.

Many people put paper towels over the wood shavings for the first several days until they learn what their food is. Paper towels can make clean-up easy. I don't use wood shavings in the brooder but still give them a small cup of dirt from the run to introduce grit by day 2 or 3 in the brooder just to be safer.

I have grit but haven't introduced it yet since they are only eating their crumbles. When did you introduce the shavings?

 

[socalchickens76]

Well, at 3 days old, they should know what their food looks like.
Were they on shavings when you got them?

They arrived in the mail from the hatchery. They were on a straw mat in the box.

 

[socalchickens76]

I've always had excellent results with puppy pee pads. Much sturdier than paper towels, easy to change out every evening, very absorbent, no dust.

That's what I had them on...puppy pads. But we thought that maybe today would be a good day to switch to shavings. Seeing them peck the shavings and possibly eating them was stressing me out too much so we just took the shavings back out . I just don't know the best time to make the switch. Maybe a week?

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I never use shavings while they are in the house, too messy. At three weeks we move them to an outside brooder and at that point we may use shavings or shredded paper, whatever we have. We use shredded paper in our big coop, DH gets big bags of it free from the bank where he works. Not only free but easy to transport, does not harbor lice or mites, stays clean and dry bc it wicks moisture and dries out the droppings ... I could go on and on. Good stuff!

 

[Liberty-Chicken]

We use paper towels and they work great for us!

 

[FrostRanger]

I have my chicks on shavings from day one, I just also provide grit from day one as well in case they do eat a bit of their shavings and that has worked well for me. Just make sure to use the large flakes and not the fine ones until they get older