My Chickens are eating DIRT. Why???

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From E Tennessee

I would feed them lots of live greens. I have 3 kinds of weeds that mine like here and they are available all winter. I periodically toss some in to them and they pounce on them like it was a chef's salad.
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They will walk away from scratch grain to get greens of any kind. Greens are loaded with lots of trace minerals. Weeds have lots more than domestic farm-grown crops do because they likely grow in soil that is not depleted of minerals, as most farmland in N America is.
 
Ridgerunner said:
It's not all that unusual for them to peck at dirt. Just because you think they should eat the grit you provide them doesn't mean they agree. They may have a diet deficiency. They may be getting bugs or other creepy crawlies out of it. They may just see tiny particles in it that looks interesting. After all, my Delawares try to peck the paint specks off my shoes.

The layer contains practically everything they need. If they are getting so much other stuff, like the fruit and veggies, they may be developing deficiencies of some kind. The layer contains the calcium they need, but if they are eating a small amount of layer compared to the other stuff, maybe they are not getting enough calcium. You might cut back on the outside stuff and feed them mostly layer for a week or so and see if it makes a difference. And maybe offer calcium on the side.
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Hi Ridgerunner, Notice you have Delawares. I've got 5 lite Brahma in 4 x 8 coop with ladder style perch. I want to incorporate a few Delawares. These Brahma are only 9 weeks , do you think they will be good room mates. 1 of the 5 is a small rooster.
 
Hi, welcome to the forum. Glad you joined.

Whitebird said:
do you think they will be good room mates.
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You may notice this thread is kind of old, from 2010. Don't feel bad about that, it happens all the time and nothing wrong with revitalizing old threads. But a lot of those people are no longer active on the forum.

I'd question if you have enough room for many more chickens and integration may be a bit challenging, but as far as breeds go they should be compatible.
 

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