Showing posts with label Chicken. Show all posts
GMO Feed to Chicken (Picture)
Posted by Unknown in Chicken, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO), Pictures, Poultry Farming on Tuesday, 29 January 2013
Pre-Placement Checklist for New Chicks
Posted by Unknown in Chicken, Poultry Farming
Equipment Check:
- After confirming that the equipment capabilities meet the number of chicks to be placed,
- install the necessary brooding equipment and check that all equipment is functional. Ensure
- that all water, feed, heat and ventilation systems are properly adjusted.
Heater Checks:
- Verify that all heaters are installed at the recommended height and are operating at maximum output.
- Heaters should be checked and serviced an adequate time BEFORE pre-heating commences
Thermostats or Probes Check:
- Placed at bird height and in the center of the brooding area.
- Minimum and maximum thermometers should be placed adjacent to thermostat.
- Temperature ranges should be recorded daily and not deviate by more than 2 °C (4 °F) over a 24 hour period.
- These should be calibrated at least annually or sooner if doubt exists about accuracy.
Floor temperature Check:
- Houses should be preheated so that both the temperature (floor & ambient) and
- humidity are stabilized 24 hours before placement.
- To achieve the above target, pre-heating needs to commence at least 48 hours before
- chick placement.
- Pre-heating time is dependant on climate conditions, house insulation and heating
- capacity and will vary from farm to farm.
- Chicks do not have the ability to regulate body temperature for the first 5 days and thermo regulation is not fully developed until 14 days of age. The chick is highly dependent upon the manager to provide the correct litter temperature. If the litter and air temperatures are too cold, internal body temperature will decrease, leading to increased huddling, reduced feed and water intake, stunted growth and susceptibility to disease.
- At placement, floor temperatures should be at least 32 °C (90 °F) with forced air heating.
- If radiant heaters / brooder stoves are used, floor temperatures should be 40.5 °C (105 °F) under the heat source.
Minimum Ventilation Check:
- Minimum ventilation should be activated as soon as the preheating begins to remove waste gasses and any excess moisture.
- Seal air leaks to eliminate drafts on chicks.
- 14-16 drinkers/1,000 chicks (includes supplemental) should be provided within the brooding area of which 8-10 can be bell type drinkers.
- All drinkers should be flushed to remove any residual sanitizer.
- Adjust pressure to produce a droplet of water visible on each nipple without dripping.
- Check for water leaks and air locks.
- Ensure that nipple drinkers are at the chicks’ eye level.
- Water must be clean and fresh.
- Supplemental drinkers should be placed in such a way that the chicks will make the association between supplemental drinkers and the main system
Feeder Check:
- Remove all water remaining from clean-out prior to filling.
- Supplemental feeders should be provided for the first 7-10 days in the form of paper, trays or lids.
- Trays should be provided at a rate of one per 50 chicks.
- Supplemental feeders should be placed between the main feed and drinker lines and adjacent to the brooders.
- It is of utmost importance that the supplementary feeding system does not run empty as this will place great stress on the chick and reduce yolk sac absorption.
- The base of the supplementary feeders should never be exposed - keep full at all times!
- Supplemental feeders should be refreshed three times daily until all the chicks are able to gain access to the main feeding system. This generally occurs at the end of the first week.
- Feed should be provided as a good quality crumble.
- Do not place feed or water directly under the heat source as this may reduce feed and water intake.
- The automatic system should be placed on the floor to make access easier for the chick. Where possible, flood automatic feeding systems with feed.
- If using paper, the feed area should be a minimum of 50% of the brooding area. 50-65 grams of feed per chick on the paper is recommended. The paper should be placed near the automatic drinking system so the chick can have easy access to both feed and water
Choose Chicken Over Beef To Cut Stroke Risk - Study
Posted by Unknown in Beef, Chicken, Health Issues, Meat, Research and Studies on Sunday, 27 January 2013
(Reuters)
- While a high-protein diet may have health benefits, not all protein
is equal -- eating lots of red meat raises the risk of having a stroke
while poultry lowers it, according to a U.S. study.
"The
main message from this paper is that the type of protein or the protein
package is really important for the risk of stroke," Frank Hu at the
Harvard School of Public Health said of the study, which was published
in the journal Stroke.
"We have to consider protein in the context of the foods."
Hu
and a team of researchers collected data from two massive health
surveys that tracked nearly 130,000 men and women from roughly middle
age to their senior and elderly years.
Over the 20-some years of the study, nearly 1,400 men and more than 2,600 women had a stroke.
To
see what influence different types of dietary protein had on the risk
of stroke, the researchers divided up the people in the study based on
how much red meat, poultry, fish, dairy and other sources of protein
they typically ate each day.
Men
who ate more than two servings of red meat each day, which was at the
high end of the meat eaters, had a 28 percent increased risk of stroke
compared to men who on average had a third of a serving of red meat each
day, the low end of the meat eaters.
Women
who ate nearly two servings of red meat a day had a 19 percent higher
risk of stroke than women who ate less than half a serving each day.
Swapping
in one serving of poultry lowered stroke risk by 27 percent, a serving
of nuts or fish was linked to a 17 percent drop, and a serving of dairy
dropped the risk by 10 to 11 percent.
A
serving of red meat was considered to be 113 to 170 grams (4 to 6 oz)
of beef, or a hamburger patty. A serving of poultry was considered to be
113 grams.
People
who ate the most chicken or turkey each day, about a half serving for
women and three-quarters of a serving for men, had a 13 percent reduced
risk of stroke compared with those who ate barely more than a serving a
day.
Researchers
did not prove that beef is to blame for the increased number of
strokes, but Adam Bernstein, lead author of the study, said it could be
that the fat and iron in red meat play a role.
An
earlier study led by Susanna Larsson at the Karolinska Institute in
Stockholm, Sweden, also found that eating red meat had a link to the
risk of stroke.
"I
do not think that poultry has been considered as a protein source that
might lower the risk of stroke. This is new," Larsson told Reuters
Health in an email.
One
surprise was that fish seemed to offer no protection against stroke,
although Bernstein said it was possible that the benefits of fish depend
on how it's served.
Health Authorities Still Search for Cause in Bird Flu Death
Posted by Unknown in Animal Health, Bird Flu, Chicken, Poultry on Friday, 25 January 2013
(Xinhua)
-- Health authorities in south Guangdong province have yet to find the
cause of the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus, commonly known as bird flu,
that led to the death of a bus driver, a local disease control official
said Sunday.
The
39-year-old man surnamed Chen in Bao'an district of Shenzhen was
hospitalized for fever on Dec. 21 and tested positive for the H5N1 avian
influenza virus. He died of multiple organ failure Saturday afternoon,
the Guangdong Health Department said in a statement.
The
department also said that during the previous month prior to his fever,
he had no direct contact with poultry and hadn't traveled out of the
city.
Chen's
wife said he had a habit of doing morning exercises every day near a
wetland park and an artificial lake not far from his home, but "no proof
has been found that his infection is connected with the migratory birds
there," He Jianfeng, director of the Epidemics Studies Institute of the
Guangdong Disease Control Center, said Sunday.
"We also don't know whether he had eaten poultry before he fell ill," He said.
He said contacts with poultry and migratory birds are two ways for humans to be infected with bird flu.
"But
Chen had been in coma after being hospitalized, so we couldn't inquire
about what birds or poultry he may have had contact with," he said.
The
General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and
Quarantine (AQSIQ) on Dec. 22 suspended supplies of live poultry to Hong
Kong after a dead chicken tested positive in Hong Kong for the highly
pathogenic H5N1 virus.
The
AQSIQ said it would maintain close contact and work together with the
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) to jointly step up
measures to control the epidemic.
The
Guangdong Department of Agriculture announced Saturday that no epidemic
of bird flu among poultry had been reported in the province.
Chen's
wife said he had asked for sick leave and stayed at home five days
before he was sent to hospital due to an ankle injury. While she
prepared his dinners, she didn't know what he had been eating for lunch.
Hong
Kong media reports have quoted one of Chen's friends as saying that
Chen had slaughtered a chicken to cook for others, but He Jianfeng
doesn't think that was the cause of his death.
"That took place a month ago. It cannot be the reason. The latent period of bird flu virus doesn't last that long," he said.
He advised locals against panicking, saying no proof has been found to show that bird flu virus can be spread among humans.
"By
Jan. 1, among the 120 people who had close contact with Chen, including
his wife, colleagues and medical workers, no one has shown any
symptoms," he added.
Also
on Sunday, the Shenzhen Municipal Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine
Bureau announced it had commenced 24-hour monitoring at all ports during
the ongoing three-day New Year holiday to enhance health inspection of
overseas visitors and guard against possible health incidents.
Bald Chicken 'Needs No Plucking'
Posted by Unknown in Biotechnology, Breeds, Chicken
Bald Chickens
(BBC News) Scientists have bred a controversial featherless chicken which they say is faster growing.
The birds, created at the Hebrew University in Israel, will not need to be plucked, saving money in processing plants.
While
the researcher behind the breed concedes that they would not be
suitable for cooler countries, he says that in hot climates, the birds
would fare better.
However,
opponents of the move say that the changes do not benefit the animals,
and are in fact likely to make their lives worse.
Professor
Avigdor Cahaner, who led the project, told the BBC: "This is not a
genetically modified chicken - it comes from a natural breed whose
characteristics have been known for 50 years.
"I am just transferring that to fast growing broiler chickens. It's a normal chicken except for the fact it has no feathers."
He
said that broiler chickens were fed intensively to achieve fast growth,
which meant they also tended to produce a lot of body heat; and this
meant that particularly in hotter countries, they "suffer tremendously".
The
featherless birds would tend to be leaner, and perhaps grow faster, he
said, which would improve the quality of the meat and save producers
money.
Pollution claim
Removing
the plucking process would also reduce pollution, he said. The process,
he claimed, produced large quantities of water contaminated with
feathers and fat.
However,
animal welfare groups warned that feathers were important to help
protect the birds from parasites - and that the featherless chickens
were likely to suffer sunburn.
In addition, male chickens might not be able to mate, they argued.
Swarnadhara poultry breed's benefits, no chicken feed
Posted by Unknown in Breeds, Chicken, Layer Poultry, Poultry, Zz_Wordpress on Monday, 10 September 2012
M.J. PRABU
The eggshell is brown in color and thicker than other commercial eggs |
| MORE YIELD: The birds lay about 180-190 eggs in a year. |
IN AGRICULTURE, even with the best crop production strategies and technical expertise, there is no guarantee that the yield will be bountiful.
Agricultural experts have always been advising farmers to grow multicrops instead of monocrops and rear cattle, goats and poultry along with their crops, because even if the crops fail, the animals and their produce will help the farmers overcome their financial losses.
Hardy Birds
Compared to cattle and goats, which require a hefty investment, farmers can rear country chickens (having coloured plumage) as these birds are hardy, require less space for growing and fetch a good price for their meat and eggs.
The development of a hybrid chicken breed named Swarnadhara by researchers at the Department of Avian Production and Management (DVPM), Hebbal, Bangalore will go a long way to meet the above criteria.
High Egg Production
Swarnadhara chickens have a high egg production potential along with better growth compared to other local varieties and are suited for mixed and backyard farming, according to Prof. K. Venkat Reddy, Associate Professor, Department of Poultry Science, Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fishery Sciences University (KVAFSU), Hebbal, Bangalore.
The bird can be reared for its eggs and meat. It attains maturity from the 22-23rd week after hatching.
Hens attain a body weight of about 3 kg and the cocks about 4 kg. "Swarnadhara hens lay about 180-190 eggs in a year. This breed yields 15-20 eggs in a year more than Giriraja chicken breed, which was released by the University in 2005.
(For information on Giriraja chicken breed refer The Hindu, Farmers Note Book dated December- 22-2005.)
"Compared to Giriraja breed, Swarnadhara breed are smaller in size with a lighter body weight, which makes them easier to escape attacks from predators such as jungle cats and foxes.
Good Hatchability
Each egg weighs about 55-60 gms," says Prof. Reddy. The eggs have a good hatchability (80-85 per cent) and enable the farmers to raise their own stock. A day-old chick weighs about 35-40 gm.
The eggshell is brown in colour and thicker than that of other commercial eggs and does not break easily.
"The eggs can be stored for 8-10 days at room temperature during summer and during winter for about 15 days.
The eggs are priced between Rs.3 and 5 in the local market," Prof. Venkat Reddy explains.
The birds are only layers and not brooders (that is, they only lay eggs and do not incubate them).
The eggs have to be hatched by local brooder hens. For backyard rearing, a flock of five hens and one cock can be ideally grown.
The birds are sturdy and have a high longevity. No special care is required to grow them.
Local Feed
They can be raised as free roaming birds and can be fed with locally available materials, according to Prof. Venkat Reddy. Being good scavengers, they feed on a variety of insects and green foliage. They can also be fed on farm and kitchen wastes.
"The birds are resistant to major infections except ranikhet and new castle which are common infections in poultry," he says.
Annual Income
A pair of Swarnadhara chicken fetches an income of about Rs.920 a year through the sale of its eggs and meat. One-day-old chicks and eggs of this breed are priced at Rs. 9 and Rs. 5 respectively and are sold at the university campus, according to him.
For more information readers may contact Professor. K. Venkat Reddy, Associate Professor, Department of Poultry Science, Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fishery Sciences University (KVAFSU), Hebbal, Bangalore-560024, Phone: (080) 23414384, 23411483 (ext) 201.
The Hindu
What Do Chickens Eat? A Guide to Chickens Food
Posted by Unknown in Alfalfa (Lucerne), Chicken, Feed, Layer Poultry, Poultry on Saturday, 8 September 2012
What do chickens eat?
Our chickens food guide will show you what to feed chickens, as well as your options for how to feed chickens.
Learn how to raise chickens in backyards and small farms for optimal self sufficiency, health and productivity.
Meeting the Nutritional Needs of Chickens
Chickens are production animals and so demand a nutrition-dense diet. Even if you are keeping chickens as pets, they still need plenty of nutrients to grow and lay eggs.
Feeding and Types of Chickens
What do chickens eat depends significantly on the types of chickens you are feeding, and whether you are raising chickens for eggs, or growing chickens for meat.
As this table shows, growing chicks have high protein requirements, and those being grown commercially for meat need the most.
On such a rich diet, commercial meat chickens normally reach their table weight by the tender age of just 7 weeks.
On the small farm or backyard it is often more practical to feed rooster and hen chicks together regardless of their different destinies.
However, expect such roosters being grown for the pot to take more than twice as long as commercial birds to reach a respectable size for eating.
Laying hens also have a relatively high protein requirement, as well as needing a lot of calcium, much of which goes straight out again as eggs.
And of course, chickens also need a whole range of other minerals, vitamins and fatty acids to thrive.
What Do Chickens Eat?
Here we’ll mainly concentrate on meeting the prodigious nutritional needs of the laying hen. However, most of this dietary information can be applied to other chickens; just remember though that non-layers need a lot less calcium!
***This is important as giving high calcium (i.e. layer) rations to other chickens, such as growing chicks, can cause kidney damage. ***
Another important point: never feed spoilt or mouldy feed to your birds. Feed is best fed fresh so don’t buy more than what you would expect to use within a few weeks.
And no matter what diet source you go for, make sure your chickens get plenty of fresh greens (weeds, vegetables, grass) every day.
Something to Think About If Raising Chickens for Eggs…
Laying an egg every day is no mean feat… Nutritionally it is akin to a woman giving birth to a full-term baby once a week!
No wonder failure to provide a quality, balanced ration is a common reason for poor egg production when raising chickens for eggs at home.
So, what is the best way to meet the prodigious nutritional needs of the laying hen? There are several options…
What Do Chickens Eat – Your Options!
We’ll cover a full range of options for what to feed chickens – from wholly commercial to the fully self sufficient option suited to raising organic chickens.
Commercial Layer Ration Only
What do chickens eat when you are too busy to mix or grow your own feeds?
By far the easiest option is to buy a high quality feed specifically formulated for laying hens from your local livestock outlet.
This should contain everything your layers need in the correct balance, including grit, vitamins and minerals.
Provide these rations ad lib, so that your hens can have as much as they want at any time.
Commercial layer rations can be in the form of seed mixes, pellets or crumbles. Use a poultry hopper, just half full and elevated to hen head height to avoid waste.
Expect each laying hen to use about ¼ lb (114 gms or half a cup) of commercial chickens food a day.
Supplemented Layer Ration…
What do chickens eat when grain is cheaply available in your local area? Yes, you can significantly cut your feed costs by supplementing commercial rations using cheap local grain.
The best solution is to feed the grain free choice (around 50 grams per hen per day) either in hoppers or spread on the ground amongst deep clean litter to encourage scratching, along with a higher protein (20 to 22%) laying feed.
If using a complete 16% protein laying feed, cut the grain fed down to half of this amount or your hens will get too fat.
You can also add surplus fresh or sour milk, stale bread, table scraps, pasture and garden waste to further cut the amount of commercial feed needed.
Consider local supplies of these resources – such as the waste from restaurants, bakeries, lawn-mowing contractors, fruit and vegetable outlets…
Whenever you are not using 100% commercial rations you need to also provide:
• Extra grit for all chickens.
What do chickens eat to compensate for having no teeth? Grit! Grit is needed by chickens to help grind seeds in their stomach, taking the place of teeth! It can be in the form of fine gravel or small, sharp granite chips.
• Extra calcium for laying hens.
The formation of egg shells requires considerable amounts of calcium. Provide it free choice as either calcium grit, natural lime sand, or oyster shell.
You can also recycle egg shells back to your hens after first washing the albumen off them (to prevent bacterial growth), then drying and crushing them.
Home Mixed Feed
Commercial rations can contain some unsavory industrial waste products such as sewerage, brew yeast or citrus sludges, as well as medicants such as antibiotics or coccidiostats.
So what do chickens eat when you are raising organic chickens or simply prefer a purer, fresher, more wholesome diet for your chooks?
One option is home mixed feed. It is not without its problems though.
Apart from the time and trouble of ensuring a balanced ration, I’ve done some calculations on home mixing my own “complete” chickens feed from bought ingredients and found the commercial feeds a cheaper option.
You just can’t compete on price with the big feed mills! If you can grow your own grains this is not such an issue though.
To do this right you must find the best and most cost effective local sources of protein and carbohydrates, and provide these in balance with sufficient calcium and grit to meet your chickens nutritional needs (see chart above).
Ideally, what do chickens eat when they are layers?
16-17% of the diet (by weight) should be protein. Wheat only has 12.5% protein. How do you make up the difference? By feeding the grain (wheat in this case) with a high protein feed.
Here is the protein content of some potential chicken food ingredients:
IMPORTANT… WHEN FEEDING PEAS OR BEANS!
Grain legumes such as peas and beans contain Trypsin inhibitors that not only reduce the availability of protein in the feed, but can also damage the bird’s pancreas causing chronic illthrift.
To use grain legumes you must first prepare beans or peas in such a way that you destroy the Trypsin inhibitors. This is usually done using heat – keeping them at or above 180°F (82°C) for at least 15 minutes.
The most effective method is:
1. Soak enough legumes to feed your chickens for a few days overnight in water.
2. Bring the whole lot to the boil then simmer for 15 minutes.
3. Cool and refrigerate.
4. Feed directly to your chickens (e.g. a heaped tablespoon of boiled soybeans per bird per day).
Here is a sample ration (parts are by weight):
52 parts Wheat24 parts prepared (boiled) Lupins or Soybeans 14 parts Meat Meal13 parts Corn9.5 parts Lime Sand (38% Ca)9.4 Skim Milk powder4.7 parts Sunflower Seeds0.4 parts Iodized Salt
What do chickens eat for vitamins and minerals?
Essential vitamins and minerals can be provided either in the form of a special proprietary preparation, or as dried kelp collected from the beach, as well as daily nutritious weeds, herbs and vegetables picked from your garden (see the home grown section below for more details).
Self Sufficient, Home Grown Option
What do chickens eat when, like us, you are striving to be as self sufficient as possible? The question is more important than you might at first believe.
Bought chickens food (as well as humans’ food!) of all kinds is destined to become increasingly scarce and expensive due to the twin influences of peak oil and climate change.
Add global economic collapse to the mix and it makes increasing sense to plan for self sufficiency now rather than for continued dependence on purchased inputs to your system.
And if your aspiration is raising organic chickens, it is even more crucial to grow as much of their food (organically of course) as you can.
So how do you grow your own chickens food?
We must start by reconsidering their nutritional needs (outlined above) for protein, carbohydrate, calcium, minerals, vitamins and grit and how we might meet them.
What do chickens eat for Protein?
There are several options on what to feed chickens to meet their protein needs at home.
Earthworms
Do chickens eat worms? Absolutely! And just as well, as they are a rich source (28%) of high quality protein as well as “good” fats and other nutritious yummies.
Earthworms are also easy to grow, converting almost any organic waste material – from used tea bags, paper and potato peels, to horse manure, weeds, hair and vacuum cleaner dust - into a primo poultry food ingredient.
Under ideal conditions earthworms reproduce rapidly. Grown on horse manure, one square meter can yield 1.7 kg of earthworm protein a year, enough to exceed the protein needs of 1 hen.
You can either grow your earthworms in special worm farms and feed them out to your gals, or grow them in the rich soil of your specially designed organic vegetable garden system and let the hens help themselves, while doing valuable work for you at the same time.
Other High Protein Fodders to Grow
• Alfalfa (Lucerne):
High protein and a good source of several vitamins and minerals, Lucerne is a perennial plant that can yield 0.3 kg of protein per m2 per year when irrigated.
We grow it specially for our hens and chop a good handful of the young fresh growth each day into their feed.
• Duckweed:
If you have greywater you wish to purify, duckweed (Lemnaceae) will do the job for you. Duckweed is a valuable feed supplement.
It has high concentrations of trace minerals, and its protein is extraordinarily rich in the essential amino acids, lysine and methionine. Each square meter of pond would yield around 0.4 kg of protein per year.
• Comfrey:
Comfrey provides a protein and mineral-rich feed which can effectively replace some costly concentrates in the poultry diet.
In summer four to five comfrey plants per hen can meet much of their protein and calcium needs. In winter, when the plant dies down, alternative sources need to be found.
Being less fibrous than Lucerne, it is much better suited to the digestive system of chickens.
With a dry matter protein content of between 15% and 30%, comfrey is as valuable a protein source as legumes. It is also rich in vitamins and minerals, particularly calcium, potassium, phosphorus and iron, as well as magnesium, sulphur, copper, zinc, selenium and germanium.
What do chickens eat for Carbohydrates?
All animals need carbohydrates for energy. For the laying hen about 80% of the diet should be carbohydrate. The most concentrated sources are the grains – wheat, barley, rice, oats, as well as vegetable seeds that chickens integrated with Permaculture vegetables can access.
Unless you are growing these yourself, or can get a steady supply of stale bread from your local baker, you’ll need to purchase grain locally. Luckily it is relatively cheap.
Hens totally unsupplemented with commercial rations may need from 50 to 100 grams of grain each per day, depending on what else they are eating and the season (feed more in cold weather).
What do chickens eat for Calcium?
Calcium is best made available to laying hens ad lib as crushed oyster shell or cuttlefish, or sprinkled in appropriate quantities on other feeds as crushed limestone (lime sand).
Various foods are rich in calcium and can also be included in your chickens’ diet. These include many green leafy vegetables (e.g. collards or mustard greens), brewer’s yeast, oats, milk, kelp, cooked beans and peas, sunflower and sesame seeds.
Herbs and vegetables you can grow for your girls which are known to be high in calcium include: dandelion, chickweed, mustard greens, kale, cabbage, dandelion, watercress, parsley, comfrey, plantain, nettles, raspberry (leaves), alfalfa, red clover, horsetail and chamomile.
Many of these can be served fresh, dried or sprinkled over fresh food.
Fresh watercress (Nasturtium officinale) in particular is highly nutritious, providing 4% calcium, 3% protein, just over 1% phosphorus, and a very good source of other important vitamins and minerals.
What do chickens eat for Minerals?
Your hens will get much if not all of their mineral needs from the many herbs and vegetables they get access to from your organic garden system.
If you are, however, keeping them in a simple run, kelp fronds make a very good source of essential minerals in the right combination for good health.
Simply collect some from a clean beach, then hang whole from a sturdy clip inside the run for the chickens to help themselves.
We make up our own inexpensive multimineral multivitamin preparation for supplementing all our animals and even ourselves.
Here is our recipe:
• 1 part (by volume) Torula or Brewers Yeast powder
• 1 part Lecithin granules
• 1 part Kelp powder or granules
Combine ingredients and store in the fridge in an airtight container. Give at the rate of 1 flat teaspoon per hen twice a week mixed into other food.
What do chickens eat for Grit?
On your travels, look out for deposits of sharp grit of granite, gravel or other hard rock and collect a variety of sizes. Offer the smallest to young chicks and the larger ones to adult birds.
