Should I still buy grit or can I save a couple dollars?

[howfunkyisurchicken]

I bought a 25 lb bag of oyster shell 3 years ago when I got my chickens. I may have used 2 cups out of it. They use some of it every once in a while, but usually that's only when the weather is bad and they're stuck in the coop. Most of the time they just pick pebbles from the yard, and turn their beaks up at the rather expensive oyster shell. Good luck!

 

[ranchhand]

Quote:
Oyster shell and grit aren't for the same thing. Oyster shell is for the added calcium to make sturdy egg shells. Grit stays in the crop, to aid in digestion. Since mine free range some and have sandy dirt floors in the runs, I don't bother with grit. But I do have oyster shell available all the time, to add calcium. You can feed the shells back to them, too.

I bought a bag of oyster shell- I suspect I have a lifetime supply.

What WAS I thinking- the entire long "sidewalk" at our house is sand and crushed shells!

 

[Laigaie]

We, too have lifetime supplies of oyster shell and grit. Out here in the hills, we're surrounded by grit, and a single 8oz serving of tap water has 1% of your daily calcium.

Not to mention, of course, that they're on layer feed with a good calcium content. So, of course, the little bins of grit and shell in their coop just sit there. Occasionally they manage to tump it all out and we get to refill them, but mostly it goes uneaten. Everything I read before we got chickens said it was necessary.

Fortunately, it was cheap!

 

[Arielle]

When my girls were still cooped up in our house, I used our driveway gravel.

We've lived here forever, so I felt ok about the gravel being "clean", so I sifted it to get the smallest grains, and then baked it at 350 for 30 minutes! THe next batch I just sifted out the larger stones, sure thought they'd choke. As a newbie, I'm still learning too!

Now that they can access what ever is in their huge run I've stopped worrying.

If they don't have access to grit you do need to provide it before they need it to grind up any food that needs grinding.

 

[lfreem2]

I have a cheap plastic container full of sand that they use to dust bathe in, and I do see them eating it when they need to. Big 40 lb heavy bag was only $3.50 at the hardware store....

 

[elmo]

Grit stays in the crop, to aid in digestion.

Not the crop, actually, but the gizzard (or ventriculus). That's the chicken's second stomach, the muscular one where food is ground into smaller particles for digestion. The crop is kind of like a grocery bag that the chicken uses to hold food before she begins to digest it in her first stomach, the glandular one, called the proventriculus.

The best kind of grit is granite chips because they have plenty of angles. Sand is too fine, and pebbles are usually too rounded to serve properly as grit.​

 

[Laigaie]

Here in AR, our pebbles are actually shards of chert. Somewhat like flint and harder than shale, I was baffled when my first culled roo's crop was full of chert spheres. Apparently he'd ground down all the sharp edges in the five weeks he'd been with us. I'd never seen chert that shape!

 

[gryeyes]

Quote:
Same here. About once a year I buy another bag o' construction sand from Lowe's and fill up their tub of sand. It's got round and jagged bits of pebble and granite in it.

 

[MeowCluckBark]

I bought a small bag of chick grit only because my chicks aren't outside. The girls outside aren't getting any anymore. I haven't had a single case of pasty butt or any sick chickens yet. I'm new though so that doesn't count for much.

 

[redhen]

I've had the same bag of grit for 3 yrs now... my birds do NOT use it at all...