Grit question?

[UrbanEgg]

So I have a little tuna can screwed on a wooden post in the corner of the run that I put grit in. Should it ALWAYS have grit in it? It seems whenever I fill it, its empty the next day. Are they filling up on rocks? Like are the chickens just eating it because its there? I have 6 chickens, btw. I've been afraid to keep filling it.

 

[miss_jayne]

i bet they aren't ingesting it. i bet they are scratching it out and dumping it. chickens naturally scratch at their food sources. they may be just wanting to dump it out to see what's in it. fill it and hang around awhile to see what they're doing in there.

if they are outside on soil, your chickens don't need grit anyway. they have free grit on the ground.

pebbles, little stones etc. in the winter they may need some.

 

[UrbanEgg]

I don't think they can reach it with their feet. It's up pretty high on the post (maybe a foot?)--and I've never seen them sitting on/in it since its so little. But whenever I fill it, they go running for it and peck in it like I've fed them worms!

They are outside on soil, but in a 12ish foot x 6ish foot fenced in area. The get out a few times a week to the rest of the backyard for maybe an hour each time. But I have little kids who play out back barefoot all the time and them stepping in chicken poo isn't for me (and they bring their neighbor friends who don't know how to behave around free roaming chickens), so I don't let the chickens have full free range of the yard all the time.

 

[miss_jayne]

weird. are they just jumping up and hitting it and knocking it all out?

chickens wont eat grit just to 'eat it'. unless....are you using the red chick grit.....