3/18/2023 0 Comments Chick grit![]() This information is for entertainment purposes only and is not meant to treat or diagnose any medical condition. I am simply passing on information that has worked for me and my flock. I am not a veterinarian or other animal care professional nor do I claim to be. If you chose to purchase something through the link, I will get a small payment from Amazon. plus, you'll also get the free download ' 25 Ways to save money raising chickens'. Want information on raising chickens sent right to your email weekly? Click right here to join my list and get new posts sent directly to you the day they're published. Grit is just one of the many chicken keeping expenses you can cut to save money! Chicks that free range will be able to get their grit from the ground like the adult chickens do, so they won't need added grit. Once treats are added to their diet I add a small bowl of sand to their brooder. If your chickens are confined to a grass run though, you will have to provide them with a small bowl of grit, small pebbles or course sand.Ĭhicks don't need grit as long as they're only on chick starter. If your chickens free range then they will be able to pick up all the small rocks and pebbles they need as they search for bugs and such. ![]() We also wouldn't want a whole frog to get stuck in there somewhere, would we Serabelle? *sigh* Gotta break that thing down so it can move through easily. For this reason, it is absolutely essential that chickens have grit in their diets. If the chicken food is not ground up by the gizzard, the nutrients would not be as available to the chicken to absorb. Nutrena has a good description of the chickens digestive system if you want more details!Īs you can see, the food gets ground up by the gizzard right before it reaches the small intestine where the nutrients are absorbed. Here's how the chickens digestive system works:ġ) Chicken eat the food and it goes down the esophagus into the crop.Ģ)The food can stay in the crop for up to 12 hours before it moves on to the stomach.ģ) In the stomach the digestive enzymes are added before moving the food on to the gizzard.Ĥ) The gizzard churns and flexes, grinding up the food into smaller, digestible particles by smashing it together with small pieces of stone.ĥ) The now smaller particles of food move into the small intestine where the nutrients are absorbed.Ħ)The food passes through the ceca where bacteria help break the food down further.ħ)The food then continues on to the large intestine before moving through the cloaca and exiting through the vent. It basically acts in lieu of teeth, grinding up the food since chickens can't chew their food. MOTHER EARTH NEWS GUIDE TO SAVING MONEY ON FOOD 6.99. Wiki Grit is necessary for the gizzard to function properly. GRIT GUIDE TO BACKYARD CHICKENS, 7TH EDITION 6.99. The gizzard is a specialized stomach constructed of thick muscular walls, used for grinding up food, often aided by particles of stone or grit. I mean everything! Serabelle even swallowed a frog whole once (once that I've seen, Yuck!) It would be really hard on the body to digest food whole like that, so the food needs broken down somehow. So while they do try to rip off small pieces of food, they pretty much just swallow everything whole. In fact, I bought a 50 pound sack of chick starter this week to feed my all-adult flock because the stupid Big R store only had a couple of four-month old sacks of Flock Raiser, and the chick starter had a current mill date.You see, chickens don't have teeth. It's almost identical in ingredients as all flock feed. You can feed chick starter as long as you wish. Quite the contrary, chicks, in trying to satisfy their urge to pick up grit will sometimes eat shavings instead, and that rarely ends well. I have never seen a chick get into trouble having early access to grit. It's true that chicks raised on chick starter don't need grit, but if they happen to eat something other than that, they are better equipped to deal with it instead of getting bound up and dying from constipation. ![]() This fulfills a natural instinct and it's a good insurance policy against a chick happening to get hold of something that may be hard to digest such as an ignorant boy friend or a toddler slipping a treat to the chicks that they shouldn't have. (Chick grit is close to the particle size of sand.) They equip their gizzards and then lose interest in eating the sand. ![]() Having observed many batches of baby chicks over the years, the chicks do not "binge". Chicks right out of the egg have an instinct to peck at the ground in search of grit, and when they are raised on sand as my chicks are, they immediately set out to pick grit up and swallow it, thus kitting out their little gizzards to be ready for any food that happens to present itself. My personal opinion is that baby chicks benefit from having access to chick grit right from day one. ![]()
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