We haven't had any chicks picking on others. Maybe a bad batch. That's unfortunate. We're trying to ramp up egg production to sell locally as prices have gone up and Australorps are king. The record for egg laying was done by an australorp a 367 eggs in one year. I've never heard of the bread you are getting. They sound very interesting. Hope to hear updates! I've never done the vaseline thing before, but heard a lot of people mention it. No reason for not doing it. Just never got around to trying it. Hopefully it works for you! I've actually always done pine shavings. Most recently we ran out of room and I had to put a group of chicks in a bathtub with pine shavings. They still managed to walk around just fine even with that slick surface underneath. Your idea is very fancy with the pads, but if it comes time to change them out due to smell, that might be it's own adventure. With shavings, you can at least just sprinkle more on. To get nerdy, chicken poop is high in nitrogen and the smell is from that off-gassing. But nitrogen is easily bound by carbon so when you use wood shavings, you won't ever smell the poop. You'll smell the chicks, but never the poop. There's a number of farmers out there doing "deep bedding" with wood chips and you'll never smell the poop. Then if you take it one more step, once you get those pine shavings to break down into compost, it becomes incredible fertilizer because of the nutrient concentration. This has been our intense focus for the last year so I could ramble on. I've never heard about heating the water so I couldn't say if it's a good idea. Maybe doing that could help with pasty butt. We've always just had a basic waterer in with them and they were fine. Apple cider vinegar is a great idea. We always try to get that in their water.