![]() Chick grit can be given until around two months of age when they move onto adult grit. After three weeks, you can buy chick grit with larger particles but is still finer than they will need as adults. Very fine sand, such as that for kids play areas, is not coarse enough and can impact crops. If you give grit, you can use washed builders sand for chicks up to three weeks old. It is best not to feed chickens anything other than commercial feed until they are 3 to 4 months of age, as it can cause an imbalance in their diet. As chicks grow and are given kitchen scraps or mealworm treats, they will need grit. Chick feed is already small and can easily be digested without grinding. ChicksĬhicks that are fed a commercial starter feed don’t usually need any grit. It’s rather like the grinding wheel of a mill. The gizzard is where the food gets ground down as the muscle moves the food against the chips of stone. The gizzard is a very tough but flexible kind of pouch made from muscle. ![]() The grit is stored in the gizzard and works like teeth to grind the food into a digestible mush. A wild chicken would take up grit naturally as they pecked at insects, worms, and so on. ![]() GritĪlthough it has no actual nutritional value, insoluble grit is necessary to help chickens break down their food in the gizzard.Īs chickens lack teeth, they have no natural way of grinding down their food, so they need a little extra help. Even if allowed to free range, feed should always be made available to your flock. Therefore, it is reasonable to suppose that it is also better for your chickens psychologically too. Getting food from a feeder is a lot less entertaining. It also supplements the chicken’s diet with a wide variety of different things which are generally good for health.įoraging is also the most natural way for chickens to eat. It can be advantageous in helping to reduce feed costs. Many breeds of chicken enjoy being free-range and foraging for their food. Once they have discovered how good eggs taste, it’s very difficult to stop the habit. Because of this, regular feeding with good quality feed is so important. Luckily, chickens that eat eggs only tend to happen when there’s a food shortage or a lack of something in their diet. I have witnessed a chicken lay an egg and mear moments later turn around and peck at it to get to the contents. Unfortunately, It’s this opportunistic nature that can backfire and turn them into egg eaters. They are also great opportunists, happy to peck at a carcass or forage grass seeds. This means that naturally, they would eat seeds, plants, insects, earthworms, snails, small animals such as frogs, mice, and even some snakes.
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