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Id like to hear you have added some shade and shrubbery, first. Do they have a dust bath, preferably under a shrub? These will go a long way towards protecting them from environmental heat. Chickens are jungle fowl by ancestry and so thrive best with shade and overhead cover.
I had to look up "caliche"...
Caliche is a sedimentary rock, a hardened deposit of calcium carbonate (lime). This calcium carbonate cements together other materials, including gravel, sand, clay, and silt. Caliche occurs worldwide, generally in arid or semi-arid regions, including in central and western Australia, in the Kalahari Desert, in the High Plains of the western USA, and in the Sonoran Desert. Caliche is also known as hardpan, calcrete, kankar (in India), or duricrust. The term caliche is Spanish and is originally from the Latin calx, meaning lime.
I would refrain from dumping road rubble in their pen, since you don't know where its been. If they are on the dirt, in an area where caliche is prevalent, then I'm certain they can find their own grinding grit.They may also get more than enough calcium from the caliche in the soil so that egg shells will be strong. If you want to add some grinding grit to be certain, crush some old brick or mortar and toss it in where they can get it. Or just go the nearest wash and find some small gravel.
As for scratch, you can add some. Don't consider it more than a minor supplement and you should be fine. IF you want to give them something to do so they wont be "bored," ** give them green feed instead.
Any sort of vegetation will do that isn't toxic like green grasses, garden or produce waste (cabbage or lettuce cores, roots veggies, etc.) - heck, even 'nopales' will do. Simply hang these greens in a bundle about 18" high from the top of a 3 ft. stake in the pen. The chickens will get exercise jumping up and down to peck the greens and will so have something to do.
** Where do we get the notion that chickens get bored and so must have something to do?
Their pen is a section off of the house under some oak trees. But unfortunately it is 100* in the shade here. They like to get under the nest boxes off the ground and take plenty of dirt baths. They have an automatic waterer so they are sure not to run out and I freeze milk just and put them in a bucket on it's side. I have been so worried about them overheating but everyone seems to be doing well.
They seem to love to scratch around so I was just trying to figure out something to give them to scratch at
So I think on my next trip to the feed store I will get some scratch! thanks everyone for all the advice!
Id like to hear you have added some shade and shrubbery, first. Do they have a dust bath, preferably under a shrub? These will go a long way towards protecting them from environmental heat. Chickens are jungle fowl by ancestry and so thrive best with shade and overhead cover.
I had to look up "caliche"...
Caliche is a sedimentary rock, a hardened deposit of calcium carbonate (lime). This calcium carbonate cements together other materials, including gravel, sand, clay, and silt. Caliche occurs worldwide, generally in arid or semi-arid regions, including in central and western Australia, in the Kalahari Desert, in the High Plains of the western USA, and in the Sonoran Desert. Caliche is also known as hardpan, calcrete, kankar (in India), or duricrust. The term caliche is Spanish and is originally from the Latin calx, meaning lime.
I would refrain from dumping road rubble in their pen, since you don't know where its been. If they are on the dirt, in an area where caliche is prevalent, then I'm certain they can find their own grinding grit.They may also get more than enough calcium from the caliche in the soil so that egg shells will be strong. If you want to add some grinding grit to be certain, crush some old brick or mortar and toss it in where they can get it. Or just go the nearest wash and find some small gravel.
As for scratch, you can add some. Don't consider it more than a minor supplement and you should be fine. IF you want to give them something to do so they wont be "bored," ** give them green feed instead.
Any sort of vegetation will do that isn't toxic like green grasses, garden or produce waste (cabbage or lettuce cores, roots veggies, etc.) - heck, even 'nopales' will do. Simply hang these greens in a bundle about 18" high from the top of a 3 ft. stake in the pen. The chickens will get exercise jumping up and down to peck the greens and will so have something to do.
** Where do we get the notion that chickens get bored and so must have something to do?
Their pen is a section off of the house under some oak trees. But unfortunately it is 100* in the shade here. They like to get under the nest boxes off the ground and take plenty of dirt baths. They have an automatic waterer so they are sure not to run out and I freeze milk just and put them in a bucket on it's side. I have been so worried about them overheating but everyone seems to be doing well.
They seem to love to scratch around so I was just trying to figure out something to give them to scratch at
