free range chickens & oyster shell

[witchwriter]

my 6 girls are free range with kitchen scraps only - i do not offer them feed. we live on a farm and they get plenty of protein from frogs, lizards, other bugs, etc... they also get 16 oz of sunflowers seeds each morning to share amongst them.

they are 16 weeks now and i put some oyster shell out for them today. is it too soon? will they eat too much? how do i ration it to them? i have 4 red sex links and 2 black australorps.

also, i have been feeding them quite a bit of melon fruit/rinds lately and 1 has diarrhea - should i stop feeding fruit/rinds? they really enjoy it and its been in the 90's most days and the fruit/rind has been chilled.

thanks, deb

 

[BantamLover21]

It is fine to give them oystershell at this age, and you don't need to ration it. They will eat as much as they need and leave the rest until later.

As for your chicken with diarrhea, you could try stopping feeding the fruit rinds for a while and see if that helps. But I don't think that the fruit could be the main problem--many other things can cause diarrhea. Fortunately, diahrrea is not usually a serious problem in chickens, and it should go away in time.