Grit?

[Ch1ckens]

HI!
So what is girt? What Does it do? Do I need To give it to my 3 week old chicks? Any recipies to make it myself?

Thanks!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Grit is rock. Chickens don’t have teeth to grind food, they have a gizzard. They keep rock in the gizzard to act as hard teeth.

If all they eat is chicken feed, they do not need grit. It’s already been ground up, even the pellets and crumbles. But if they eat anything that needs to be ground up, which is about anything else, they should have grit.

You can buy grit or chick grit at the feed store. For three week olds, you can give them coarse sand, like construction sand. Don’t use the really fine sand like play sand. It goes right through them. You can get sand from a sand bar in a creek or river. You can get the small pieces of rock out of a gravel driveway. If you let them on actual ground, they’ll get their own.