Mixed Size Flock - Grit Differences

[WeatherlyAnn]

Hello!
My husband and I are first time chicken owners and currently have 6 chickens in our flock right now.
They are about 15 weeks old.
4 of them are Blue Jersey Giants and 2 of them are Silver Seabrights (We purchased more littles, but only two survived their chick years)

I am reading up on grit and feed sizes and read that the different sizes are needed for the little ones.
I wanted to know how y'all would go about this.

I read that layer grit is too big for the Silver Seabrights and Grower grit is too small for the Blue Jersey Giants.

I was thinking of offering different "feeders" for the different grit size, but wasn't sure if that was unnecessary and I should instead mix the two together OR if the smaller grit is okay for the big girls to stay on.

The same goes for Oyster shells when we start offering that to them!

Thank you all so much for your help!

 

[WingItRanch]

Hi! Are they all 15 weeks old? Interesting mix you've got there! Giants and bantams.

I think if you mixed up chick and adult grit, the smaller pieces may just fall to the bottom of the container so wouldn't really help. The point of grit is to allow the chickens to process food other than their regular feed. So if you're giving occasional treats or kitchen scraps. This is needed when they're confined to a coop/run. When free ranging, a chicken will typically naturally find grit in the ground.

I believe providing smaller grit for the Seabrights is the way to go. The small grit won't be a problem for the Jersey Giants. They'll just eat more if they need it. Chickens are amazingly good at knowing what they need.

As for oyster shell, same thing. I know they make some crushed up in smaller pieces and they'll just take what they need. At 15 weeks, I'd go ahead and start offering it free choice now.

 

[WingItRanch]

Oh and Welcome to BYC! I just realized that was your first post.

 

[WeatherlyAnn]

Hi! Are they all 15 weeks old? Interesting mix you've got there! Giants and bantams.

I think if you mixed up chick and adult grit, the smaller pieces may just fall to the bottom of the container so wouldn't really help. The point of grit is to allow the chickens to process food other than their regular feed. So if you're giving occasional treats or kitchen scraps. This is needed when they're confined to a coop/run. When free ranging, a chicken will typically naturally find grit in the ground.

I believe providing smaller grit for the Seabrights is the way to go. The small grit won't be a problem for the Jersey Giants. They'll just eat more if they need it. Chickens are amazingly good at knowing what they need.

As for oyster shell, same thing. I know they make some crushed up in smaller pieces and they'll just take what they need. At 15 weeks, I'd go ahead and start offering it free choice now.

Yeah... We were led a little astray when shopping for them and didn't fully grasp the size difference until we got to the car and looked them up a little more...
Luckily they get along really well and take good care of each other.

That all makes perfect sense though!
I'll stick with the smaller grit and the oyster shells!
They are currently in a run, but will have some time to "free range" our acre lot after a while when we are home in the future!

Thank you so much for the advise and the welcome as well!
I am very happy to be here!

 

[rosemarythyme]

I'd offer a mix of sizes (grower and layer), in two different cups if needed to differentiate. The big ones can't do anything with chick grit, it's smaller than even the pieces of spent grit they'd poop out.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

Yeah... We were led a little astray when shopping for them and didn't fully grasp the size difference until we got to the car and looked them up a little more...
Luckily they get along really well and take good care of each other.

That all makes perfect sense though!
I'll stick with the smaller grit and the oyster shells!
They are currently in a run, but will have some time to "free range" our acre lot after a while when we are home in the future!

Thank you so much for the advise and the welcome as well!
I am very happy to be here!

I’ll add to the welcome!

You’ve gotten great advice, so all I’ll add is that we’d love to see a pic of your flock together!

In most cases it’s easy to paste a photo you took, and you don’t even need to use the drop image option above. Just tap the photo and select copy, then tap the area where you type messages and select paste.