Week olds...dust baths, heat and bedding

[Ccort]

My babies will be a week old tomorrow. I cannot belive how much they've grown already and their little tail feathers are coming in!
I've noticed a couple are bathing in their food that has spilled onto the puppy pads. Do I need to provide a dust bath? What do I actually use for this and do I leave it in for a certain period of time?
Also, I know I am supposed to reduce the heat but because I am using a heat plate...do I just raise it a bit? Or should I adjust the room temperature instead and knock that down a couple of degrees? (I raised my house temp upon receiving the babies.)
Lastly, they have had grit twice now. How often should I give it at this age? And if I now let them use pine bedding, will it still causes them harm to eat it since they have chick grit? If so, what do I do? They need real bedding eventually and these pads are covered in poo in no time at all.

Thank you for your help. Really, I dont know what I would do without this forum!

 

[azygous]

Okay. What is "beesing"? That has me stumped.

Chicks, no matter how young, appreciate a dirt bath. Get a salad bowl and fill it with sand or peat moss or planting soil without insecticides. They will make a glorious mess of it.

Grit can be provided free choice all the time. It's insurance against them eating too much of the wrong thing and getting compacted.

Heat is something it sounds like you can use a little tutoring on. Chicks need a heat source to replace lost body heat. The ambient temp can be a comfortable 70F or a chilly 40F. It makes no difference whatsoever. It's the heat source the chicks will use to replace lost body heat.

They need less supplemental heat during the day when they're busy stuffing calories into their bodies. At night they need more heat as they aren't consuming calories, so they lose more.

 

[Boppo]

Use the search feature at the top of your menu to look for articles or further discussions about any sort of questions you have, as well as just asking. The Forums, also at the top menu, offer lots of sub menus to browse through. But as another new chick owner, I really like the Raising Baby Chicks one.

Also, everybody here is very helpful, but some folks know a lot more than others. Look at the tags below the person's name. Some folks will have tags that say EDUCATOR, or SPIRIT, and those folks tend to have shown and share more knowledge. Others, like me, are newbies. We might be friendly, and some others might even have lots of experience, but look for that seal of approval when you are deciding whose advice to follow.

 

[RubelliteRose]

So, with a heat plate, you can just raise it up to the next setting. I usually just raise the front by one notch and leave the back so the plate is tilted and they can choose how much heat they want.
For the grit, I just leave a small bowl in the brooder. They will probably dump it, but then they can eat off the floor too.
Once they are a week old and have grit, go ahead and put the pine shavings in. They will eat some, but don't worry about it.
I put in a small square of grass after the first week and the chicks scratch it up and turn it into a dirt bath. They are so cute when they first start bathing!

 

[RoyalChick]

With a heat plate they will be fine in quite cold temperatures (mine was going to 38-40s at night but others have gone colder with no problems).
In terms of grit, I gave mine a bowl of grit which they of course bathed in. One got to bathe while the others at bits of grit flying around.
Normally I would have given them a bowl of dirt and grass but the weather was so awful when they arrived that I didn't do that and improvised with the grit.
I also put a pinch of grit in the feeder when I refill it - they don't need much really.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Dust bath at this age can be almost anything. I don't provide chicks with a dust bath but they'll roll around in the bedding anyhow.

As far as heat, you can raise the plate a bit as they get bigger, and also lower the temps in your house down (or crack open a window if it's not too cold outside).

With grit, I am one of those folks that sprinkles a bit onto their food, as this prevents them from making a mess of a grit dish and also prevents overeating of grit. A tiny pinch every few days seems to be plenty to me, and yes mine do nibble their bedding and I haven't had issues with that.

 

[-Isla June-]

My babies will be a week old tomorrow. I cannot belive how much they've grown already and their little tail feathers are coming in!
I've noticed a couple are bathing in their food that has spilled onto the puppy pads. Do I need to provide a dust bath? What do I actually use for this and do I leave it in for a certain period of time?
Also, I know I am supposed to reduce the heat but because I am using a heat plate...do I just raise it a bit? Or should I adjust the room temperature instead and knock that down a couple of degrees? (I raised my house temp upon receiving the babies.)
Lastly, they have had grit twice now. How often should I give it at this age? And if I now let them use pine bedding, will it still causes them harm to eat it since they have chick grit? If so, what do I do? They need real bedding eventually and these pads are covered in poo in no time at all.

Thank you for your help. Really, I dont know what I would do without this forum!

Dust baths are what chickens need. If they don’t get dust baths they can be stressed and bored. My chickens began throwing up because they were bored, anxious, and stressed.

 

[Ccort]

awesome! Don’t dress it, you’re chickens sound healthy and happy!

Thanks! They're so young that I'm afraid yo mess something up! I have one that is like a puppy...runs to my hand to be held. They're so sweet.

 

[bruceha2000]

I was afraid my house might be too chilly as well while they explore around.

I've had 4 day old chicks running around in 50°F temps, they don't mind it at all as long as they can get back to their heat source (hen or Mama Heating Pad, or in your case, heat plate) when they start to get cold.

i recommend using a heat lamp and placing it three feet from bottom.

From the bottom of what? And, IMHO, NO on the heat lamp. They have their heat plate, chicks don't need the "standard" ambient temps of 95° the first week dropping by 5°F weekly until they are feathered.

That might be necessary for large scale farm raised chicks but they typically use hover brooders which are similar to a heat plate with an AREA of the brooder space being heated higher than ambient. They aren't going to heat an entire barn to 95°F

What chicks need is a proper heat source they can go to when they get cold.

I think making it a tiny bit cooler at day would be a good option!

Don't bother. As with a MHP, watch the chicks. If they won't come out from under the heat plate it is too cool, if they won't go in it is too hot. If they come and go, sleeping under it, the plate temp is fine. You will need to raise it as the chicks grow (which is FAST!)

I'll start doing a small bowl of grit. Or I assume I can mix it into the chick starter?

I've never done chick grit. They don't need it if they ONLY get chick starter. Mine have always been on dirt (barn alley and outdoors) where they seem to find plenty of "grit". Now if yours are in a "clean" environment and they are getting eating some things that is not commercial chicken food, I think having it separate would make it so they eat as much as they need. But it may not matter if it is mixed in with the food, they'll pick out what they want. I have oyster shell on the side for my layers.

 

[Ccort]

Have a hair dryer handy, set on low heat. Take a cotton ball saturated with a little warm water with a drop of Dawn detergent and wipe the chick clean. Immediately blow dry the down.

Done! Thanks. She did great.