Sand Sub for Grit?

It sure can!

 

Not very well. Play sand is too fine and smooth to do much good. It will just pass through their system. If you have coarse construction sand, that will work fairly well, especially for chicks, but adult really should have something bigger. Adults can use pieces up to the size of a pea.

It does not have to be the granite grit from the store. Other rocks will work. I have gathered pebbles from a gravel driveway and used that.

 

Quote:True! I forgot that I use Quikrete sand in sand boxes... Lol. And it does have pebbles and such in it.. If the sand has small stones, I think it would work...

 

If you can let the chickens free range for an hour or so, they will find just what they need. There is no reason to buy grit when it is all over your property. In going it this way they get just what they need to do the job right.

 

I posted on the chick board about this, actually. I happen to have a gravel driveway made from granite scrap, several colanders, and some sand. I made a little plastic tray up with a section of sand, a section of small bits of driveway gravel that could pass through a metal screen colander, and a section with bigger pieces that could pass through a plastic colander with fairly large holes. I then put in the tray and pulled up a chair to watch. The smallest chicks chose the small driveway gravel and the bigger chicks chose the large driveway gravel. None of them ate the sand. So, I think they'd prefer something coarser.

I didn't want to free range peeps but I also didn't want to buy grit when I have a ton of it right outside. I expect that once they're big enough to range, they'll collect their own driveway gravel pieces.

 

I bought a bag of Quickcrete all purpose construction sand 50lbs for $2.98 at Home Depot yesterday. It has lots of assorted size stones/rocks/sands in it. The girls started gobbling it up, but haven't dust bathed in it yet. They do have free choice chick starter so they weren't starving.