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chickens

Poultry Grit

Timothy Norton

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posted 7 months ago

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My understanding is that chickens require grit in order to keep a healthy digestive system. Common recommendation is to just have a self-serve container of grit and that is considered 'good' husbandry.

I have a lot of questions!

Are some types of 'grit' better than others? Are there 'supplements' such as oyster shell that should be provided as well? Can grit be 'harvested' locally or even on your property?

What are some best Permie practices when it comes to poultry grit?

Thank you in advance.

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James Bridger

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Location: Nebraska zone 5

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posted 7 months ago

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Sand/rocks pile up at the end of my sidewalk when it rains. Every once in a while, I grab a shovelful and toss it in for the chickens. They seem happy to dig through it and pick out whatever little treasures they want. Might not be the best option, given whatever else washed down the street with that sand and rocks, but it's free, it comes in various sizes, and it makes the chickens happy.

Anne Miller

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posted 7 months ago

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I have always been told the same as James suggests.

I have read that coarse, construction, and river sand is okay. Though playground or sandbox sand is not so good because of the fine ground quartz.

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Aimee Bacon

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posted 7 months ago

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Chickens only need grit if you are giving them anything other than mass produced poultry feed and not allowing them to free range. I have always heard that granite is the best grit, however, I have never used it. My chickens free range the property and find their own.

Matt McSpadden

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posted 7 months ago

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Hi Timothy,
I always offered grit and oyster shells to my chickens as free choice. I'm sure they can get grit many places, but I had them on pasture, so it would have been harder to find, than say on the edge of my driveway.

I've never gotten into which grit was the best, but I can tell you that around here, the landscape supply companies have a product called granite dust or stone dust that is about the same size as the grit you get in a bag from the store. Around here it cost like $5 for a 5 gallon bucket full. You could give that to an awful lot of chickens for an awful long time for $5 :)

Just throwing this out there, that when I get chickens again, I intend to offer kelp meal and biochar free choice as well. The kelp meal to help with some of micro nutrients that are often deficient on land. And the biochar can help the chicken immediately, and can help the soil when it comes out the other end.

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Thekla McDaniels

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posted 6 months ago

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They use grit to grind coarse food. Their gizzard is very muscular, and with grit in the gizzard, grasshoppers and whatever else they have eaten is ground to a paste. As is noted above, they need grit if they’re eating anything other than commercial chicken mash, they need grit.

It has to be coarse enough to grind the seeds and specks they peck.

I think oyster shell has a lot of calcium, and so I give them oyster shell as grit. But they are free range, so they can get what ever else they can find.

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Location: Perth, Western Australia

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posted 6 months ago

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The poultry grit sold here comes from a beach made up of seashells. It may not be ideal, but logically snail shell seems the best as they eat snails. Shell Beach

Cécile Stelzer Johnson

pollinator

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Location: zone 4b, sandy, Continental D

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posted 6 months ago

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My chickens have grit and oyster shell grit from Tractor Supply but some eggs still have pretty thin shells. I discovered that they don't take it after it has been rained on and they'd rather scratch and forage for it rather than have it in a bowl. Perhaps once it has been sitting in water after a rain, it is not appealing to them? I poked a drainage hole under the bowl.
The thin shells are a problem I need to solve. Not sure what to do...

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Mary Cook

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Location: rural West Virginia

posted 6 months ago

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I have sand piles for my garden, they access those--my husband once saw a hen leading chicks out of the coop for the first time 11 days after hatching, and she led them straight to the sand pile. I dry (half an hour atop the woodstove in winter, a day on the windowsill in summer) and crush up their eggshells and feed it back to them for the calcium, but we occasionally give them oyster shell as well if it seems the shells are getting thin. It should not be mixed with the feed as too much calcium is not good for roosters.

Josh Hoffman

pollinator

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Location: Louisville, MS. Zone 8a

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posted 6 months ago

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I do a bunch of things that are supposed to be problematic. I bag 2 acres of grass and put it directly in the 24'x24' coop/run with 12"-18" deep bedding every week. I have 15 layers in there along with meat rabbits suspended in cages. I feed the chickens from the garden and forage food for them. This cuts way down on commercial feed. We feed the egg shells back to them. I chip up all my available branches and also put most of that in there along with fall leaves. These chickens are my soil factory. I get the most beautiful compost towards the bottom of the bedding that is easy to screen in a wheelbarrow and use around the property.

Maybe it has to do with location and soil type but we don't offer any grit and all is well. Happy chickens with beautiful eggs.

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Carla Burke

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posted 6 months ago

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"Are some types of 'grit' better than others?"
Not that I know of.

"Are there 'supplements' such as oyster shell that should be provided as well?"
I always try to ensure my birds have a couple sources of calcium; usually oyster shells and their own crushed egg shells, and I've never had trouble with soft or brittle eggs, unless something else was going on, like the first few weeks after a very young hen begins laying, or there's been some trauma.

"Can grit be 'harvested' locally or even on your property?"
My chickens get all the grit the could possibly want/need from free-ranging our land.

"What are some best Permie practices when it comes to poultry grit?"
Good question, but I'm hoping that letting them forage their own grit as they hunt bugs and choice bits of foliage fits the bill!

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Hans Quistorff

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posted 6 months ago

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Ideal grit harvest site: a sea shore sand ,. Three things mentioned here mix together at the high tide line by the waves. coarse and broken shells with dried bits of dried sea weed and kelp. Free for me but as mentioned above harvested and sold by enterprising people
On the other hand chickens are enterprising so with permaculture planing the often do most of the harvesting of food and grit for themselves.

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Carla Burke

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posted 6 months ago

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P.s. A single, 50pound bag of crushed oyster shells lasted my chickens almost 5yrs, while I average 18 chickens. So, definitely not a huge expense, in the long run.

Matt McSpadden

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I would like to also point out that while calcium sources like oyster shells can be used as a form of grit... it is water soluble and will not last long compared to say pebbles and granite shards. Because it does not last long in the gizzard, it will be little help for food that needs to be ground up well to be digested well. I prefer to keep both stone based grit and oyster shells for chickens.

Thekla McDaniels

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posted 6 months ago

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I didn’t know oyster shell is water soluble, and doesn’t last long in the gizzard. Assuming that is true, that seems like a good thing, because of the high availability! And I bet the chickens know when to ingest more grit.

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Mike Barkley

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posted 6 months ago

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Shrimp & grits!!! OK, maybe that's not what the OP's question meant but I'd bet the chickens would love it!!!

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Timothy Norton

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Location: Upstate NY, Zone 5, 43 inch Avg. Rainfall

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posted 1 week ago

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I've recently read that a chicken might consume a 1/3 lb of grit per month. I think that is kind of incredible!

Matt McSpadden

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Location: Central Maine (Zone 5a)

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posted 1 week ago

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Timothy Norton wrote:I've recently read that a chicken might consume a 1/3 lb of grit per month. I think that is kind of incredible!

That is pretty impressive. I imagine it matters what kind of grit. If it was something like oyster/egg shells that dissolve fairly easily, I imagine they would go through more than an actual pebble that would probably stay for longer.

Carla Burke

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posted 1 week ago

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Matt McSpadden wrote:

Timothy Norton wrote:I've recently read that a chicken might consume a 1/3 lb of grit per month. I think that is kind of incredible!

That is pretty impressive. I imagine it matters what kind of grit. If it was something like oyster/egg shells that dissolve fairly easily, I imagine they would go through more than an actual pebble that would probably stay for longer.

The oyster/egg shells are for calcium, and the 'grit' (which ours get from eating the sandy, tiny rocks, in our driveway) actually helps digest the shells.

Jill Dyer

pollinator

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Location: Oz; Centre South

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posted 1 week ago

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Our chickens used to free range in a pen that was house-block sized, so they picked up small pebbles for their crops. Beside that we had a self-serve pot of shell grit for calcium for the egg shells - just what it sounds like - tiny sea shells - source? no idea, as it came from the fodder shop. Then the egg shells were dried out as we used the eggs and crushed and re-cycled to the pen with the veggie scraps.

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Mary Cook

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Location: rural West Virginia

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I find it incredible that a good hen will lay something as large and meaty as an egg nearly every day in spring--no wonder she needs all that calcium to replace what the shells take out of her, and lots of feed to replace the contents.

Jake Esselstyn

pollinator

Posts: 130

Location: South Louisiana, 9a

posted 1 week ago

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I would like to also point out that while calcium sources like oyster shells can be used as a form of grit... it is water soluble and will not last long compared to say pebbles and granite shards.

I'm having a hard time understanding how this could be true. Oysters live in water. Why don't they dissolve?

Matt McSpadden

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posted 1 week ago

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Jake Esselstyn wrote:

Matt McSpadden wrote: I would like to also point out that while calcium sources like oyster shells can be used as a form of grit... it is water soluble and will not last long compared to say pebbles and granite shards.

I'm having a hard time understanding how this could be true. Oysters live in water. Why don't they dissolve?

A fair point. I think I should have said that they dissolve more quickly in the crop/stomach. So maybe acid soluble? Is that a term? :)

Jake Esselstyn

pollinator

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Location: South Louisiana, 9a

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Ah yes, the acidity would do it. In the gizzard though, which is quite acidic. Thanks for clarifying.

Thekla McDaniels

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Most shells and probably oyster shells are covered in an insoluble layer. I can’t remember the name of it just now. A pearly inner layer between the animal soft parts, a primarily protein coating on the outside

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