Your chicks need toys. Truly, they do.

As you’ll learn in this article, decades-worth of research has shown that chicks reared with toys do better. They’re healthier, happier, and better able to navigate their worlds.

Decades-worth of science has also shown that chicks go through major developmental changes in their first two weeks of life. And your chicks will thrive the most when they have the toys that aid their development at each stage.

Now, let’s dive into the details so you know exactly which toys your chicks need, when they need them, and the science of why.

I’ve also distilled all this information down for you into a simple two-page pdf, Your day-by-day guide to chick toys!

This post contains affiliate links for my favorite products from Amazon and Chewy. As an associate, I earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.

What are chick toys?

I’m defining “toy” here very loosely as any object you add to your chicks’ brooder space that they find interesting, whether this is a stick to perch on from your backyard or a xylophone to peck at that you specially ordered.

Toys don’t have to be expensive—you can find plenty of objects around your house or in your yard that you can use for chick toys.

Or, you can follow my lead, and go nuts ordering pet toys online!

Why do chicks need toys?

For example, chicks reared with toys:

Toys are more than just fun for your chicks—they’re valuable tools, providing your chicks with the skills they need to live their fullest lives.

What kind of toys do your chicks need?

Here’s where it gets interesting.

So, for example, your chicks have a sensitive period for imprinting on a caretaker figure in their first few days of life. If they don’t imprint during that time, they will never imprint. The sensitive period has forever closed.

And because chicks feel safer when they’re imprinted, you’ll want to ensure your chicks imprint on you or a suitable object in those first few days. And, yes, there are “toys” that can aid you in doing this! More on this below…

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So, when your chicks are around 10 days old, you’ll want to provide the right toys to help them develop their spatial skills to their fullest capacity.

Bottom line here: you’ll need to make sure you introduce the right types of toys at the right time for your chicks to get their full benefit—and you’ll learn exactly how to do that below!

How to choose the best toys for each of your chicks’ developmental stages

Your chicks will go through 4 main stages of development during their first two weeks of life. These stages are:

1. Imprinting (Days 1-3)

2. Early exploration (Days 4-7)

3. Complex awareness (Day 8)

4. Spatial navigation (Days 9-14)

Now, let’s talk about which toys your chicks need for each developmental stage.

Days 1-3: Help your chicks imprint with imprinting objects.

Aside from a good imprinting object, your chicks don’t need toys their first few days of life.

Imprinting is the strong social bond a chick forms with an animal or object in her first few days of life.

When you get chicks, you can imprint them on you if you have the time and desire. I’ll be writing a detailed article about exactly how to do this very soon.

And if you don’t want your chicks imprinted on you, then you’ll want to consider providing an object (or toy) for them to imprint on instead. The best object for your chicks to imprint on is their brooder plate. This is the closest object to a mother hen you can provide.

There are a couple of things you can do to ensure your chicks imprint on the brooder plate. The simplest thing is to hang a red LED light off of one corner.

The second thing you can consider is to add comfort feathers to the edges of the brooder plate. This, of course, makes the brooder plate feel even more like a mother hen. If you don’t want to purchase comfort feathers, you could still hang strips of cloth from the sides of the brooder plate to mimic the protection of the mother hen.

Another thing you can do is actually place a stuffed hen near the brooder. The downside to this is that the stuffed hen will get pooped on, so you’ll need to do some cleanup, and you may want to toss it out at the end of the brooding period. But in the meantime, your chicks will love it!

I’m getting chicks again in a few weeks, and I’ll be experimenting with using only the head and neck region of a stuffed hen in the brooder. I’ll cut the head and neck off the body and sew up the opening to hide the stuffing. I plan to tuck the head/neck just under the edge of the brooder plate so the face is at chick level.

Days 4-7: The best toys for your chicks’ early exploration phase.

After your chicks have become accustomed to their surroundings in their first few days of life, consider adding a few things to their brooder.

The chicks move, peck, and vocalize much more during this time. In short, they’re starting to develop a bit of independence and they have an intrinsic need to explore and learn.

How do you aid your chicks’ intrinsic need for exploration and learning? Oh, there are so many ways!

So, I like to add objects with different textures for them to feel out, such as glass marbles, rubber balls, plastic springs, and wooden bridges.

You can purchase these items or just get creative with things you have around the house. Just make sure the objects you put in the brooder are too large for the chicks to swallow and are toxin-free.

You can also add dangling bird toys at this time. Depending on how you’ve set your brooder up, you could get a dangly toy you hang from the ceiling, or you could get a free-standing dangly play table. But do make sure your chicks aren’t able to break off the dangling parts and ingest them.

Put the sand or peat moss in a little shoe box or plastic container and watch your chicks roll around in it and toss it over their little bodies!

Check out the video below to see a little chick dustbathing outdoors in mulch:

And you’ll also want to add some sort of perch for your chicks to play on during this time period.

But be aware your chicks may not use the perch initially.

A low perch will be more valuable at this young age than a higher one.

And, finally, chicks of all ages have the drive to chase insects on the ground and in the air, so, if you want to tap into that, try a laser pointer. They’ll love to chase the laser point around and you’ll love to watch them!

You can see how excited chicks get by a laser pointer in the video below:

Day 8: The best toy to help your chicks develop complex awareness.

Day 8 is a special time for your chicks. Studies have shown a couple different things happen on this day.

This fixation around day 8 may represent a special learning period, in which chicks need to learn to recognize differences between adult chickens and their mother, so when they become more mobile in the following days, they return to the right hen.

The fixation at this age could also help them distinguish between friendly animals and predators before they reach their next stage in development, where they venture much further away from their mama hen.

What does this mean for toys?

Well, your chicks will be absolutely fine without any new toys during this time. But, as always, I like to add toys to aid them in their learning. And because this is the time that chicks learn more about complex social beings, I like to add a mirror to their brooder. They’ll love this! And so will you!

Below you can see a video of chickens reacting to a mirror for the first time.

Days 9-14: The best toys for spatial navigation learning.

A lot of development occurs in your chicks’ brains during their 9th through 14th days of life. This is a crucial time period for spatial and motor development. Your chicks will need toys that provide an occlusion experience as well as perches or platforms at multiple vertical levels.

Why your chicks need occlusion toys

So, this is the time chicks begin venturing out of sight of mama. And that’s really important.

Here’s why.

So, your chicks’ experiences of occlusion during this time period mean they’re better able to navigate their world later on.

So, in your brooder, you’ll want to provide some toys that occlude your chicks’ views of their familiar objects—familiar objects being their brooder plate, feeders and waterers, and even each other.

If you have space, consider adding an animal hideout or tunnel toy at this time. Or add some cardboard boxes, cardboard partitions, or curtain partitions to your brooder for your chicks to explore around—basically anything that occludes their views of their familiar objects.

And one last thing: all occlusion experiences at this time should be voluntary.

Don’t force your chicks behind objects or curtains. They’ll have difficulty learning in a stressed state. Let them explore on their own.

Why your chicks absolutely need multilevel toys

Perching behavior increases quite a bit during days 9-15 of life, and perching behavior at this age will result in many advantages for your birds far down the road, including:

So, if you don’t already have perches in your brooder, be sure to add some now.

And if you have enough room, add multiple perches or platform toys with different levels. I like to add parrot perches and step toys at this time.  

Now’s the time to give your chicks more space (if you can).

This is also a great time to expand the size of your brooder if you’re able to do so.

For example, if you’re brooding your chicks in a cage, consider adjoining it to an additional cage. Or, if you’re brooding them in a puppy pen, add an additional puppy pen. And so on. Or just get creative with some cardboard rooms!

You may also consider adding a mesh exploration tunnel to your brooder door so your chicks can come out of their brooder to see the world is so much bigger than their box. Just add potty pads to the floor of the tunnel to keep cleanup easy. You can put some toys or food in the tunnel too!

So, the more space you can give your chicks for this active, physical play, the happier they’ll be! And watching them frolic really is so cute!

And you may even consider tossing a little piece of lettuce (or even a noodle) into the brooder to watch your chicks go wild with “food running.”

Food running is when a chick grabs a larger food object (like a worm) and runs around like crazy with the object in her mouth. All the other chicks chase her and try to grab the food from her mouth. It’s hysterical!

You can also add a hanging feeder toy at this time. I like to put lettuce leaves in the feeder and let the chicks go at it for about 10 minutes (and only 10 minutes). You really don’t want them filling up on anything other than their nutritionally balanced chick crumble, so don’t leave the feeder toy out indefinitely.

And just be sure to add some chick grit to your brooder if you give your chicks any food other than their chick crumble.

And just for fun… Music toys!

One particularly popular toy many keepers buy for their chickens is a toy xylophone. Sometimes chickens ignore the xylophone, but other times, they really get into it (as with all toys).

You can see a video of a couple of hens playing with a xylophone below.

I’ll be trying out a xylophone with my next batch of chicks (coming later this month!) as well as a roll up piano.

You can also try out other musical toys with your chickens. Check out the video below to see a chicken band—complete with xylophone, piano, and drums!

Feeling overwhelmed?

No worries! I’ve distilled all this information down for you into a two-page pdf, Your day-by-day guide to chick toys!

Save this article for later!

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