Why the heck do my chicks keep eating pine shavings?!

[Buck Creek Chickens]

yes a fan can do it, its not the noise it will be the vibration

 

[Pet Duck Boy]

I'm pretty sure my feed is good, I bought it 2 weeks ago and it smells fine. I turned the fan off and the chicks are eating their food again. Hopefully they won't eat shavings when I switch back in the next few days.

 

[Pet Duck Boy]

WTH?! I just went to check on them, and what are they doing? EATING THE PAPER TOWEL!!!! What the heck is up with that? I had no choice but to switch them to a small towel...and that's exactlly what my parents don't want me doing. About 1/4 of the paper towel was ripped apart....now their crops are full. At this very moment they are trying to rip apart the towel. I turned the fan off. Kept the waterer and feeder in the same place, but they continue to "misbehave". Anyone have an idea to why they do this?

 

[tdgill]

are they making a dent in their REAL food? just curious

I don't remember having a dust issue in my brooder - especially not while on paper towels .... how many chicks do you have and was it dusty pine to begin with?

 

[Pet Duck Boy]

They are now, but the past two days I only refilled their food once because they got too many shavings in it. Now, yes. Before, no.

 

[Pet Duck Boy]

Quote:
It wasn't terribley dusty, but it would make them have sneezing fits and would bother my nose. It was mostly the pine that was dusty. I have 8 chicks, 6 red sex links and 2 EEs.

 

[Hangin Wit My Peeps]

Mine did the same thing...always shredded paper towel. I then switched back to the pine shavings and added an apple in with them. They liked that! They still eat the pine shavings tho and they are 2 yrs old! LOL never hurt them at all

I would just give them some treats like a head of cabbage or lettuce to pick at or throw a half an apple in there for them. The funniest thing is throwing in a small worm and watching them play "chase me, NO chase ME!" Good luck! I would just switch them back to the pine and let them do what they do. Mine ate ALOT of it and they were all fine. I did have some grit in there also for them (especially if your going to put treats in there).

 

[Pet Duck Boy]

It just made me worried because they comepletly ignored their food. I hadn't seen them eat any of it for 2 days until now.

 

[Nostalchic]

I guess the other recommendation would be to give them some chick grit (which is really just very coarse sand) so that they can digest some of those other things that they are bound to pick at and eat. And then you can give them all kinds of treats and not worry. It may be that they are seeking something like that, and the pine chips is all they have available. Also elevate your feeder to chick shoulder height - mine would fill with bedding and who could tell what was what - if you haven't done that already. I used a coarse sawdust/pine chip bedding that I get from a local sawmill, same thing I use in my stalls, from the get go with my chicks and they all did fine.

 

[tdgill]

aHHHHHhhh. good previous post about raising the feeder to back height! maybe they got confused with all that pine in the feeder! lol. sounds like you got a crappy bag of shavings too. Too much dust/mess it sounds like. Someone told me the heavier bags tend to have alot of dust and fine shavings....