Do chicks eat their fluff?

Chocobo

Chirping
8 Years
May 27, 2011
159
2
89
I have some month old chicks that are feathering out nicely and I noticed that I never see fluff floating around or when I clean up the brooder.
Sometimes if I pick a little off they peck at it as it floats to the ground but I've never actually caught them eating it.
Is that part of the preening process I see them doing all the time or is the fluff so small it just deteriorates?
 
Your answer is partially yes. Baby chickens eat even more things than big chickens do. And that is saying A LOT. They seem to go through the whole 'put everything in my mouth' stage that human babies go through.

You may see other posts on here about how dusty baby chickens are, I believe a major contributor to the dust is baby down. That, and depending on the color of the down, it may be blending into the bedding itself.
 
Quote:
This is true. My 10 week old Wyandotte ate my earring right out of my ear. Down the hatch it went. She'd been eyeing it for two weeks prior! Now it's in her gizzard mashing up food and grass.
 
They certainly do. At some point you will see someone chasing around a floating piece like a fly! When they are older, the will often times gobble up the smaller softer ones that are occasionaly laying around as well.
 
When I worked for the commercial hatchery (many moons ago) we would open the doors to clean the incubators after a hatch (and after the boys who worked there had rolled out the racks of biddies).. inside looked like mounds of yellow "snow".. piles of "biddy dust' as we called it.. had to wear respirators so we didn't inhale it. At the end of the day we would have it clinging to our hair.. clothes.. no telling how much I ingested over the years!
On any given day we would have at least 20 of the incubators to clean.. they were the big walk in kind that you could have easily had 10 people stand in and room for a few more friends. So needless to say I have seen a lot of biddy dust!
 
Quote:
This is true. My 10 week old Wyandotte ate my earring right out of my ear. Down the hatch it went. She'd been eyeing it for two weeks prior! Now it's in her gizzard mashing up food and grass.

lau.gif
I have noticed some of my chicks fancy shiney things... always pecking at the diamonds in my wedding band. I am now thinking I should take it off around them since if one were to pop out, they are small enough for a chick to swallow!
 
Quote:
This is true. My 10 week old Wyandotte ate my earring right out of my ear. Down the hatch it went. She'd been eyeing it for two weeks prior! Now it's in her gizzard mashing up food and grass.

lau.gif
I have noticed some of my chicks fancy shiney things... always pecking at the diamonds in my wedding band. I am now thinking I should take it off around them since if one were to pop out, they are small enough for a chick to swallow!

Oh man, that's a high end expensive chicken, using diamonds for grit!
gig.gif

Maybe it'll make them lay platinum eggs!
 
Quote:
Hmmm. I wonder how long a diamond would last in a gizzard. Unless the chicken eats more diamonds it's not going to come across anything as hard but given enough time ANYTHING can be ground down.
 

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