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chickens

Poultry Grit

Timothy Norton

master gardener

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Location: Upstate NY, Zone 5, 43 inch Avg. Rainfall

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posted 2 months ago

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My understanding is that chickens require grit in order to keep a healthy digestive system. Common recommendation is to just have a self-serve container of grit and that is considered 'good' husbandry.

I have a lot of questions!

Are some types of 'grit' better than others? Are there 'supplements' such as oyster shell that should be provided as well? Can grit be 'harvested' locally or even on your property?

What are some best Permie practices when it comes to poultry grit?

Thank you in advance.

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James Bridger

pollinator

Posts: 173

Location: Nebraska zone 5

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posted 2 months ago

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Sand/rocks pile up at the end of my sidewalk when it rains. Every once in a while, I grab a shovelful and toss it in for the chickens. They seem happy to dig through it and pick out whatever little treasures they want. Might not be the best option, given whatever else washed down the street with that sand and rocks, but it's free, it comes in various sizes, and it makes the chickens happy.

Anne Miller

steward

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Location: USDA Zone 8a

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I have always been told the same as James suggests.

I have read that coarse, construction, and river sand is okay. Though playground or sandbox sand is not so good because of the fine ground quartz.

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Aimee Bacon

Posts: 14

posted 2 months ago

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Chickens only need grit if you are giving them anything other than mass produced poultry feed and not allowing them to free range. I have always heard that granite is the best grit, however, I have never used it. My chickens free range the property and find their own.

Matt McSpadden

gardener

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Location: Central Maine (Zone 5a)

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Hi Timothy,
I always offered grit and oyster shells to my chickens as free choice. I'm sure they can get grit many places, but I had them on pasture, so it would have been harder to find, than say on the edge of my driveway.

I've never gotten into which grit was the best, but I can tell you that around here, the landscape supply companies have a product called granite dust or stone dust that is about the same size as the grit you get in a bag from the store. Around here it cost like $5 for a 5 gallon bucket full. You could give that to an awful lot of chickens for an awful long time for $5 :)

Just throwing this out there, that when I get chickens again, I intend to offer kelp meal and biochar free choice as well. The kelp meal to help with some of micro nutrients that are often deficient on land. And the biochar can help the chicken immediately, and can help the soil when it comes out the other end.

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Thekla McDaniels

gardener

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Location: Western Slope Colorado.

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posted 2 months ago

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They use grit to grind coarse food. Their gizzard is very muscular, and with grit in the gizzard, grasshoppers and whatever else they have eaten is ground to a paste. As is noted above, they need grit if they’re eating anything other than commercial chicken mash, they need grit.

It has to be coarse enough to grind the seeds and specks they peck.

I think oyster shell has a lot of calcium, and so I give them oyster shell as grit. But they are free range, so they can get what ever else they can find.

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Madeleine Innocent

Posts: 103

Location: Perth, Western Australia

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The poultry grit sold here comes from a beach made up of seashells. It may not be ideal, but logically snail shell seems the best as they eat snails. Shell Beach

Cécile Stelzer Johnson

pollinator

Posts: 1341

Location: zone 4b, sandy, Continental D

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My chickens have grit and oyster shell grit from Tractor Supply but some eggs still have pretty thin shells. I discovered that they don't take it after it has been rained on and they'd rather scratch and forage for it rather than have it in a bowl. Perhaps once it has been sitting in water after a rain, it is not appealing to them? I poked a drainage hole under the bowl.
The thin shells are a problem I need to solve. Not sure what to do...

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Mary Cook

Posts: 287

Location: rural West Virginia

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I have sand piles for my garden, they access those--my husband once saw a hen leading chicks out of the coop for the first time 11 days after hatching, and she led them straight to the sand pile. I dry (half an hour atop the woodstove in winter, a day on the windowsill in summer) and crush up their eggshells and feed it back to them for the calcium, but we occasionally give them oyster shell as well if it seems the shells are getting thin. It should not be mixed with the feed as too much calcium is not good for roosters.

Josh Hoffman

Posts: 37

Location: Louisville, MS. Zone 8a

posted 2 months ago

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I do a bunch of things that are supposed to be problematic. I bag 2 acres of grass and put it directly in the 24'x24' coop/run with 12"-18" deep bedding every week. I have 15 layers in there along with meat rabbits suspended in cages. I feed the chickens from the garden and forage food for them. This cuts way down on commercial feed. We feed the egg shells back to them. I chip up all my available branches and also put most of that in there along with fall leaves. These chickens are my soil factory. I get the most beautiful compost towards the bottom of the bedding that is easy to screen in a wheelbarrow and use around the property.

Maybe it has to do with location and soil type but we don't offer any grit and all is well. Happy chickens with beautiful eggs.

-Josh at 39339

Carla Burke

Rusticator

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Location: Missouri Ozarks

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"Are some types of 'grit' better than others?"
Not that I know of.

"Are there 'supplements' such as oyster shell that should be provided as well?"
I always try to ensure my birds have a couple sources of calcium; usually oyster shells and their own crushed egg shells, and I've never had trouble with soft or brittle eggs, unless something else was going on, like the first few weeks after a very young hen begins laying, or there's been some trauma.

"Can grit be 'harvested' locally or even on your property?"
My chickens get all the grit the could possibly want/need from free-ranging our land.

"What are some best Permie practices when it comes to poultry grit?"
Good question, but I'm hoping that letting them forage their own grit as they hunt bugs and choice bits of foliage fits the bill!

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Hans Quistorff

gardener

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Location: Longbranch, WA Mild wet winter dry climate change now hot summer

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Ideal grit harvest site: a sea shore sand ,. Three things mentioned here mix together at the high tide line by the waves. coarse and broken shells with dried bits of dried sea weed and kelp. Free for me but as mentioned above harvested and sold by enterprising people
On the other hand chickens are enterprising so with permaculture planing the often do most of the harvesting of food and grit for themselves.

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Carla Burke

Rusticator

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P.s. A single, 50pound bag of crushed oyster shells lasted my chickens almost 5yrs, while I average 18 chickens. So, definitely not a huge expense, in the long run.

Matt McSpadden

gardener

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Location: Central Maine (Zone 5a)

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I would like to also point out that while calcium sources like oyster shells can be used as a form of grit... it is water soluble and will not last long compared to say pebbles and granite shards. Because it does not last long in the gizzard, it will be little help for food that needs to be ground up well to be digested well. I prefer to keep both stone based grit and oyster shells for chickens.

Thekla McDaniels

gardener

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Location: Western Slope Colorado.

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I didn’t know oyster shell is water soluble, and doesn’t last long in the gizzard. Assuming that is true, that seems like a good thing, because of the high availability! And I bet the chickens know when to ingest more grit.

Best luck: satisfaction

Greatest curse, greed

Mike Barkley

gardener & hugelmaster

Posts: 3673

Location: Gulf of Mexico cajun zone 8

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