Newbie Question on FOOD

[thebman]

Just inherited some chickens from a friend who took a job that keeps her away from home too much to take care of her birds.

She has always fed her chickens pellet food with some scraps mixed in.

If you feed birds pellets is there any reason to add oyster shell and grit or are the pellets complete food?

They are in a permanent coop right now- but we have 3 acres.
After a few weeks we will let the free range some in the yard.

Thanks in advance for the help.. this is a great resource!

 

[marianne7]

You need to add grit to their diet...but what you suggest is great

 

[BButterfly]

Well that all depends on the feed mill. Some pellet feeds already have it mixed in and others don't. Just ask them, if they do then all you need is grit. Grit helps them digest the food better and stops them from becoming impacted. If the land they are free ranging on has little stones they can eat then you all set, and the only time you'll need it is in the winter.

 

[growyourbrew]

Grit is only necessary if they don't have access to open ground. You can do a free-choice container of oyster shell. Calcium is needed to produce strong egg shells. I just feed crushed cooked egg shells back to the chickens. Make sure they don't resemble eggs anymore, otherwise, it can 'teach' the chickens to eat their eggs.