Grit substitute?

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

Interviewer: TSC, how do you stay in business with your horrible grit pricing system???
TSC: Great question. We don’t know.

“We save money by carrying almost no inventory” seems to be the story near me. If you go in for 5 things, they’ll probably have 2 of them.

 

[Ihavesomechickens]

“We save money by carrying almost no inventory” seems to be the story near me. If you go in for 5 things, they’ll probably have 2 of them.

This seems to be the story near me most of the time:
‘ We have people order products online, then when they get there we only give them half their order and make them pay for all of it.’ I ordered 2 hummingbird feeders, only had 1. Walked into store, found a whole box of the exact same thing.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

They’ve gotten wise on curbside pickup, too (which I love since I hate shopping). Order 100 ft of fence and a dozen heavy posts, and they have a 97 lb teenager roll them out to you.

“Guess I’ll load those for you, kiddo”

Still cuts one of the three “lifts” out of buying something heavy, but not 2 (shelf to cart, cart to truck, truck to shed).

 

[paintedChix]

Edited to add - I'm sorry. The "Thumbnail" function on BYC no longer seems to be working correctly. All the regular sized photos are 500x375 or 375x500. But they aren't thumb nailed for some reason... They are large and then when you click on them,larger.

I've enjoyed this thread. It's been more both educational and a good stress reliever as I out right laughed. MY response is PICTURE HEAVY...

Guess I'm "old school" like "flockingcrazy's" mom. Most of our chickens are now tractored as I got tired of the expensive birds disappearing on a regular basis while free ranging from various small coops in 3 different places on our property. We are also in process of building a lot of different permanent runs that will be off of the various coops (4-8x8' coops behind our house; 2 - 4x8' hooped coops in front yard; 3 - 8x8 hooped coops in the pony pasture). Currently have 8 different tractors in our front yard (2 in pic below). It makes me sad to have them in tractors, but at least they are on grass.



The ponies are not locked up in the barn "for their safety" - they are on pasture and in large paddocks. On this property, they don't have barns, but "just" trees to shelter under. They usually group around the round bales and away from the fencing during storms. The two that were in a barn during a hurricane were badly injured and the horses that were in a well-grounded trainer's barn during a storm were either killed outright (3) or physically/mentally damaged and euthanized (2) or physically damaged (1 - ours 1.5 yrs later when I found out she was available) and went through years of horsey physical therapy, chiropractic work and magnet stroking(long before PEMF). She was never the same or "right", but she seemed to live a happy life was eventually ridden again, raised 2 foals for us & taught the other weanlings later how to become teenage ponies. She passed naturally at age of 23yrs (the barn incident happened when she was 3 yrs old).



The group of dogs we currently have (5 ranging from #12 - #60 - Didy, Fizzy, Hobb, Goblin & ZuZu), during the day, are let loose rather then kept on a line (currently illegal in our county) to run and they leave the handful of free range chickens alone (well the rat terrier does "herd" them around on occasion). They do sometimes go down the road and I have a neighbor that will text and say - " the two little spotted ones just zipped down the road"... Usually they stop at the NASTY pond about 3/10's mile down, coming home stinky, bedraggled, panting & eyes happily glinting. Usually they go right back out to be hosed off OR they go in the tub. They do still go on the lines at night - we have an old "wiley" coyote who has gotten around traps and stays out of rifle range for us and all our neighbors... The dog yard (quite large - never had the small dogs in it; only the big ones when we had them) grass has gotten so tall, we'd lose all 5 dogs and chickens in it, but when I figure out the best way to cover it (wider than 10' in most areas) - chickens will be grazing it down!




I too, have not seen commercial sized grit (or even larger-ish pebbles) inside any of the birds I've either processed for the table (not meat birds, per say) or or the ones (not all ) necropsied after they passed. I still have most the #5 bag of grit I bought in 2011 - when I was told that the birds needed it. They've never eaten it & I put what was in the three containers for their access back in the bag when we moved and put it back out when the coops were set back up. I've never topped up the containers as they never seem to go down!

But even our "caged" birds have direct access to the ground - starting with chicks a few days old. They seem to all be doing just fine... We live on pretty much sand here in the sandhills of NC - both on our previous property where I started with chickens in 2011 and here when we moved in January 2015.

 

[Kellow1]

No sand isn't grit.

Don't feed your birds treats and they will be fine without grit.

Yes, it is! And, if he lets his chickens free-range on dirt, they are getting all the grit they need.

 

[Isaac 0]

Yes, it is! And, if he lets his chickens free-range on dirt, they are getting all the grit they need.

Did you know sand is one of the more common causes of impactions in birds? It’s much too fine. Stating that they will get all the grit they need from the yard, is being completely presumptuous, we do not know the OP’s soil type. The amount of sand, and rocks that are present in the soil are unknown, therefore, we can't say with confidence if the birds will be able to adequately find available grit matter in their yard.

Whole Diet Of Chicken Feed= No grit needed.

 

[orloffer]

The ponies are not locked up in the barn "for their safety" - they are on pasture and in large paddocks. On this property, they don't have barns, but "just" trees to shelter under. They usually group around the round bales and away from the fencing during storms. The two that were in a barn during a hurricane were badly injured and the horses that were in a well-grounded trainer's barn during a storm were either killed outright (3) or physically/mentally damaged and euthanized (2) or physically damaged (1 - ours 1.5 yrs later when I found out she was available) and went through years of horsey physical therapy, chiropractic work and magnet stroking(long before PEMF). She was never the same or "right", but she seemed to live a happy life was eventually ridden again, raised 2 foals for us & taught the other weanlings later how to become teenage ponies. She passed naturally at age of 23yrs (the barn incident happened when she was 3 yrs old).

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Beautiful ponies! I don't want to go too off topic here, but what breed(s?) are they?

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

I look at purchased grit as a cheap insurance policy. For $10 a year, I can guarantee my flock has all the "digestive assistance rocks" they need.

 

[paintedChix]

Beautiful ponies! I don't want to go too off topic here, but what breed(s?) are they?

registered American Shetlands - ranging in height from 38" to 44" (the ones pictured) with the larger "boy" being a 1/2 Arab/Shetland (sired by our first shetland stallion, out of an Arabian mare).

At one point we had 33 head. Now we are down to 10 with 9 here and 1 out on annually renewing lease.

I have actually participated in several threads on "horses" and have LOADS of pics of our ponies on BYC. Unfortunately, I didn't put them in albums on BYC and I'm not sure which threads they are on... Our own website is currently down due to a SNAFU with Word Press - which I haven't been able to address.

Edited to add - sort of grew up with horses (well, here and there). For me, there has been a much higher learning curve with chickens and gardening then there has been/is with the horses/ponies. But like with chickens - there is SO MUCH garbage about horses out there on the different forums, internet in general and YouTube that it's CRAZY! Also, we (the human race - especially americans) have done so much damage to all breeds of horses to make them pretty, that it's amazing any live or can be ridden. 'Nuff said or it will take off on it's own, LOL.

 

[MysteryChicken]

I always keep bags of dumor grit on hand to give to my birds when needed.

What types of treats would be hard for a bird to process anyways?