I had some chicks die one time and got to reading on feathersite not to use pine shaving or cedar because they eat the shavings get stopped up and die. Everywhere you look pics and articles they are using pine shavings. I just bought some chicks and used paper towels for the first few days . then when the birds knew where their food was i put shavings in . the next day one was dead . he was real heavy too and felt like his crop was full. So i panicked and took out the shavings. no other birds have died. im sure that he was probably the only one who was eating the shavings cause they would have gotten sick at the same time. my question is what else is there to use? and why do most people use the shavings . it seems that enough people have problems with the shavings . is it ok to lose a couple of chicks out of every batch to this ? thanks
Some times i use paper towels on top of the shavings for a week or two, but thats hard if you have a lot of chicks if you don't have to many try it if you have a lot you could try some old rags just till they get used to what is food/water and whats not.
when I got my chicks, I put paper towel on top of the pine shavings for the first week. I had 20 chicks and they all survived.
Staggerlee: I'm a rank beginner at this, but I used paper towels on my 9 for the first 2 1/2 weeks and I put them in pine shavings (on the advice of the guy in the chicken area at Tractor Supply Company) three days ago. They seem perfectly fine at teh moment, but I'll let you know if I have any problems. Good luck.
