Where to get grit at home?

[bigzio]

Yep, free grit that is clean works great. We are frozen here now, however one can get free sand from good locations that works great for peeps. I sprinkle some across the peep feeders ( like salting food ) just in case they are eating some of the pine shavings, creating good digestion. Sand is just the right size for little ones and works great.

bigzio

 

[bills]

I bought a box of bird gravel today at Petsmart. It has ground oyster shell, and charcoal mixed in with it. Apparently the charcoal is supposed to relieve acid stomach. I don't know if chickens get acid stomach or not, but it seemed like a good choice.

I was a little shocked when they rang it up at the till though, $6.99. I grumbled about that for awhile!

Next time they can dig for it themselves...

 

[silkiechicken]

Be careful with giving grit with oyster shell to chicks. Excess calcium can cause long term health problems in chicks. If I were you I'd return that expensive box of sand, carbon, and oyster shell and spend it on crickets!

Mine all dig for their own grit in our 8 tons of gravel that was trucked in to cover over all the drivable areas of the outdoors.

 

[hcammack]

little rocks are good for for grit I just use pea graval for my big chickens.

Henry

 

[bills]

Quote:
These birds past the point of being chicks, about 19 weeks approx. I started to give them a bit (small bit) of scratch for a treat, so figured they better have some grit. I don't know what the percentage of oyster shell is in it, but I imagine that the company that makes it probably finds the gravel cheaper than the oyster shells, so I expect it's low. The birds have, as of yesterday started going out into the run and scratching about, so they should start picking up grit from the dirt., and won't require supplemental grit.

I can't imagine a chicken eating something the size of pea gravel for grit:/. Of all the gizzards I have cleaned out from slaughterd birds, the grit is always very fine, slightly bigger than a grain of sand.

 

[Cheryl]

So the grit found in the little boxes is fine for chickens, or do I need to buy something else? They are 22 weeks old, when the ground isn't frozen, they can scrounge around, but now it is frozen. How do I give it to them?

 

[silkiechicken]

Just toss it on the ground, or put in in a bowl. I find little pebbles in my older butchered birds up to about the size of a corn kernel, while the cornish x meat birds, often I find very little large rocks, and mostly bb sized things. Once I found the head of a plastic green army guy and a toy car wheel in the crop...

Since the birds are older, the calcium won't be a problem. Just a word of warning for those with chicks.

 

[valmom]

I bought a box of parakeet grit at WalMart, but it just looked like sand. I wanted it for my adult girls now that everything is well covered with snow and ice. I didn't think the sand was enough, even though they did eat some of it. Then I thought of gravel for fish tanks. My local pet store had some un-dyed tank gravel that I boiled (just in case) and gave to them. They seem to like it.