Can I put oyster shell & grit in the same dish?

[joebryant]

I attach two plastic one-quart freezer cartons on the sides of my coops. One's for oyster shells; the other is for grit.
I buy 50# bags of granite grit at my feed store for $9.61 and 50# bags of crushed oyster shells for $6.25. One bag of each should last me for several years.

Note: I am looking at a receipt for both that only show price, not items; the prices might be reversed for the two items, i.e., the granite grit might have been $6.25, and the oyster shells might have been $9.61. I'm not sure, but it seems like the grit would cost more.

I do not feed "layer" feed or put any oyster shells in the containers until AFTER one of the same-age hens has laid an egg (usually a soft shell). Excess calcium from the wrong feed or oyster shells in a young hen that hasn't begun laying can damage her body.

BTW - I also get large bags of egg shells from the manager of a local restaurant that sells breakfasts. I put those in a hot oven until they're very hot, take them out, put them in a bag, pound on and crush them into very small pieces. Then I mix them with the oyster shells when I fill the oyster shell container. Most McDonald's restaurant managers will save their egg shells for you, but wherever you have them save them, be SURE to pick them up at the time that you say you will; they have to deal with their local boards of health inspectors.

 

[kgeorge]

My chickens love coal ashes....is that okay?

 

[Heathercp]

Wow! Thanks for all the advice.

I called the chickens I'm picking up "pullets" because they're <1 year old. By now they're almost 9 months. At any rate, I thought that was the definition of pullet: female chicken less than 12 months. Then she's called a hen. But, hey, it's all new to me. At any rate, the older girls have been laying for a while now, and I'd planned to give them layer rations and grit and oyster shell. The guy who started them from peeps (my friend's BF) was really careful about waiting until they started laying to give them layer rations. Said he wanted to start them slow so they'd be healthier and happier. That sounded like a good idea to me.

One of the chickens had a small clutch of 5 peeps. One died (unlucky accident with an overturned bowl), but the other four are doing great. I'm taking the mom and the peeps and will try to partition them off from the rest of the birds so they'll eat the chick starter and not get picked on by the others. The mom seems to be doing a great job of keeping her chicks safe and I hope that will continue. They're all living together now, and I'm just crossing my fingers that, with a little help from me, they'll all continue to get along.

I started putting up some pictures of our coop construction. The page isn't finished yet, but you're able to see what kind of area the chickens will have to forage in.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=13520-coop-construction

 

[joebryant]

Heathercp, your coop/run/free-range-area setup looks fantastic, and it seems your hens are in great shape for egg laying. As for the hen with four chicks, I would not allow myself to overstress worrying about their being in with the hens; you can rest assured that it's not likely the other hens want to mess with a mother hen. As for the chicks feed, you might try raising the hens' food too high for them to reach and put up a barrier, wood or wire, that the hens cannot go over/under/through to reach but the chicks can enter to get THEIR food. When the chicks get bigger, I would not like it, but I'd let them eat the layer feed because it'd be a pain in the neck to feed them separately. What the heck, they might even all be roosters...