How to supplement grit, clay soil?

[tickens33]

So, how much grit exactly do chickens need? And how to make sure they get it?

I have seen folks suggest leaving out a dish of grit for them to eat it free choice. Our chickens are on a remote property and we dont get to see them every day. So I'd be concerned that they were eating too much of it (as I've seen some folks have experienced with their flock) and we wouldn't be able to intervene.

Ours don't free range, but even if they did, the soil on our property is largely silt and clay, without any grit-sized rocks that we've ever seen.

Currently, every time I top up the feeder, I mix in grit with the food. I have no idea if it's too little or too much, and I feel kind of silly spending money on a bunch of rocks to potentially be wasting them.

Thoughts and wisdom would be greatly appreciated

 

[nuthatched]

Just throw it in their run, most adult birds don't gorge on grit.

 

[tickens33]

Just throw it in their run, most adult birds don't gorge on grit.

Thanks a bunch for taking the time to reply

I do throw some into their outdoor area when we're there, but that's generally only once every few days. So my concern is that they would run out in between visits. Any thoughts?

 

[nuthatched]

Thanks a bunch for taking the time to reply

I do throw some into their outdoor area when we're there, but that's generally only once every few days. So my concern is that they would run out in between visits. Any thoughts?

I wouldn't worry about that, if you're using chicken grit, it's granite and lasts awhile in their system.

 

[StinkyAcres]

I'd fill a container (something they can't spill) and see if it lasts during the times you are away. If not they'll need more. I wouldn't worry about them eating too much of it. Mine barely touch their grit.

 

[Sequoia Raven Bird Farms]

I personally think that just putting it on the ground, in their feed or in a separate container will work fine. The grit overdosing isn't very common.

P.S @StinkyAcres I like you signature! Are you a birder? I have a family of chipping sparrows that frequent my feeder.

 

[StinkyAcres]

P.S @StinkyAcres I like you signature! Are you a birder?

Yes, indeed! Thanks!

 

[Tonyroo]

Each chicken need a small pinch of grit in there system. It's retained for about 3 days but during that time they pass micro amounts in there stool. Coarse sand works as well as grit and can be poured in the corner of there pen or spread it out.

If there only eating chicken feed you don't need grit. Layer feed contains pulverized oyster shells that acts as grit and becomes soluble after some time.

 

[Al Gerhart]

Some great advice here. Find a creek and dig up a few buckets of coarse sand and rock. I have a few neighbors that never paved their driveways so right in front of my driveway is probably fifty gallons of the perfect size grit where the storm water runs off, then slows down a bit which dumps the small and medium size grit. Even if it is muddy rain water will wash out the clay. Dump it in a pile where they can get to it, they won't use it unless they need it.

Stay away from granite top fabricator waste, very heavy lead content along with nearly every toxic heavy metal known to man inside some slabs including the radioactive elements. Some might scoff but people forget that natural uranium bearing stones have far worse elements than U 238 or U 234, the natural uranium decay chain has plenty of very toxic and highly radioactive elements including polonium which is highly radioactive and toxic. Uranium starts out as well, uranium, then decays into a few dozen different radioactive elements until it reaches a stable, non radioactive lead 206.

The medical and power plant Health Physicists like to denigrate consumer fear of radioactivity but they forget that they are normally dealing with pure, refined uranium products or tightly controlled and shielded elements. Natural uranium resides in what is secular equilibrium, where the amount of radiation is pretty much equal from each different decay product, meaning there is as much gamma, beta, and alpha radiation coming from say the U 238 as from the Thorium or the Polonium. Plus that alpha and beta radiation is little threat outside the body but deadly as hell inside the body or a chicken's gizzard, where it dumps its energy right into one or a few cells instead of blasting through your entire body like a gamma particle/ray. Radiation rips apart DNA and can knock electrons/particles out of other elements which turns them into a different element. Your body is pretty good at repairing some of the DNA.

And there are four different natural radioactive decay chains. Court house granite will be tested to hell and back, they know exactly what is in it and roughly in what percentages; exotic granite countertop material, who the hell knows, but most of it is a witches brew of heavy metals including the radioactive ones. There was a famous court case in Nambia where two companies fought over the mining rights to a large tract of land. One wanted the granite for countertops, the other wanted it as source material for uranium reactor fuel.

I had a granite slab supplier once that asked for advice on testing, we set him up with the needed radiation meters after we found some very hot slabs in his warehouse. He headed off to Brazil to visit one of his suppliers and they had a 100 acre lot where they stored, sawed, and polished raw granite into countertop slabs. The meters started screaming from 50 yards away from the saw pits and water settling ponds. Radiation decreases massively with distance so this was horrendously radioactive. They had unwittingly created their own highly illegal radioactive enrichment scheme, the heavier heavy metals sinking down while the lighter elements floated off. Worse, they had built their own buildings and personal houses using fill sand from the saw pits as did many of the locals and it was all hot as hell. Same things happened in the U.S. in the early days of uranium mining.

The supplier finally told our supplier that the next door property was a uranium mine...... how fricking stupid can you be?

Some of the granite dust makes great fertilizer, phosphates in some of it, but look for the kind of shop that doesn't do the exotic countertop materials but does more what I call Court house granite, for commercial jobs.