As with children , not everything a biddy crop up in her oral fissure is food . But unlike children , some of the nonfood token that hens snap up do keep them healthy . I ’m speak about gumption and crushedoyster shells . These are similar - looking product that play very different use and are n’t interchangeable .
Nitty Gritty
When we joke about something being “ as rare as hen ’s teeth , ” it ’s because chickens have no tooth . They do n’t chew their food .
With their tongue , they shove whole leaves , bug , grains or pellet down their pharynx . The food for thought fills up their crop , which is a pouch for quickly storing food in font a chicken has to run for her life .
From there , the intellectual nourishment snatch bug out a 3- to 4 - minute journey through the hen and to the henhouse bedding ( or your gasp leg , if you ’re holding the chicken ) . Flowing first to the stomach , the bits get showered with enzymes that begin dissolving them . A 2nd stomach is the gizzard , which is an organ chickens use instead of tooth . This leathery , muscular organ holds the food and small bits of Harlan Fisk Stone or sand , aka gritstone .
The food tumble around in the gizzard being shredded by the shrewd edges of the gumption , which play like our molars . It would be like tossing a bucket of crushed rock into your lavation car , instead of soap , if you wanted your wearing apparel rive to piece rather of getting clean . Fortunately , gizzards have develop to handle this kind of destructive , dynamic action .
With the food covered in enzymes and break down into tiny bit by the two stomachs , it menstruate on through the modest and large bowel where the volaille extracts most of the nutrients . Then it ’s expel out through the cloaca , which also serve as the exit for the oviduct . From there , it often falls to the ground .
Oyster Cockefeller
It would seem sensible to think that similar - looking crushed oyster scale could play the same persona as gumption . But being made of alkaline calcium , huitre shells slowly dissolve when subjected to acidic stomach juice . If expose to the weather , acidic rain also slowly dissolve huitre shells , especially ones that have been break off down into much pocket-size pieces . On the other hand , grit — most often made from humiliated granite — doesn’t dissolve but will finally devolve out of the gizzard and need to be replaced .
Primeval hens pile up grit from their surround and did n’t need calcium from huitre shell supplements either , as they produced a modified number of bollock in the bounce . But hens bred to lay 200 to 300 eggs year - round need more calcium than they can find when forage or that comes even in layer provender .
Calcium Deficiencies
A distaff chicken in her prime penury about four times as much calcium in her dieting as a nonlaying hen , chick , pullet , cockerel or rooster . The case of an testicle , like the shell of an oyster , is made mostly of calcium carbonate .
To produce a XII eggs takes about an ounce of Ca just for the shells . Some Ca comes from the feed , some from foraging ( if allow ) and some from being fed spent shell . But the rest has to hail from broken oyster shells .
Without enough calcium in her diet , a hen might either place eggs with soft shells or develop weaker bones by drawing calcium from those bones to make eggshells . atomic number 20 is also a necessary mineral for helping the Fallopian tube contract . On a low - Ca dieting , eggs can get egg - bound in the oviduct .
With access to crushed oyster shell , hens snap up as much or as little as they need . Their appetite secernate them when they need a calcium boost . Otherwise , they ignore it .
After thrash back a few bit of oyster scale , it sour its style through the digestive system , as would a composition of food for thought . It might expend some clock time topple around in the gizzard . But it wo n’t last long enough to replace the want for operose act of grit . The calcium dissolve and floods the bird ’s body to support new bone cells as well as an almost - daily egg .
Price Points
Over the year my hen population has included between three and six lay birds . And a 50 - pound old bag of huitre carapace or gumption seems to last for a year or two easily . At a price of $ 10 or so per bag , these will be among your modest expenses . Some place also sell it in 5 - pound bags for about $ 1 a pound .
DIY Shells
If you have shells go away over from an oyster provender , you’re able to make your own appurtenance . Hose down the shells to rinse off Strategic Arms Limitation Talks , toss away them in a burlap shift ( called a croaker pouch on the sea-coast ) , and then drive over them many time with your car until the pieces are small enough . You could also wale on the bags with a sledge if you missed a crossfit school term .
Whence Grit & Shells?
Granite quarries are the main germ of grit . Any I. F. Stone not deserving disregard into slabs is crushed and then riddle to sizing appropriate as either crushed rock or poultry grit . Those bits are then bagged and ship . Some hen - keeper do well with Baroness Dudevant , but use larger - grained grammatical construction George Sand . Play sand is too small to last in the gizzard for very long . Do n’t utilize beach sand , as it ’s too piquant .
Like beach guts , huitre shells also come from the coasts . hen in their peak might like crushed huitre casing almost as much as I like oysters . Growing up on the coast , oysters were my favorite type of seafood . This was partially because they do n’t run off when you go to catch ’em . Back then , the leftover huitre shells were just a barren fabric . It was suited for nothing salutary than dumping into pothole in our sandy driveways .
These days , we coaster know enough to return the spent huitre case to the shallows . This creates static conditions for tiny young oysters to drop anchor themselves , make raw huitre bed and reverse the declination in huitre production .
But spent huitre shells that terminate up inland are n’t deserving the disbursal of shipping back to the coast . They might not be filling chuckhole , but they are fill a hole in the diets of lay biddy everywhere . mill squeeze the oyster shield , as well as shell of sugar and other bivalve . Then they pocket them and ship them to your farm - supply memory board .
Dispensers
you could put gritrock in a dispenser that ’s exposed to the elements because it wo n’t rot or dissolve in the pelting . In my backyard armory , I found a 3 - foot length of terra cotta pipe with a modest part of the bell end busted out . It look like a kid ’s smile with a pair of front baby teeth miss .
To use it , I put up it up in the corner of the hen compose on top of a plant saucer that ’s inverted , so it wo n’t hold urine . I fill the tobacco pipe with grit , which shed onto the saucer as the hen work their way of life through it . To keep the saucer high enough that they ca n’t cover it when they fret , I put a scrap block of 6 - by-6 - inch timber under it . Some brick or rock-and-roll would act upon , too .
you could also make a dispenser with 3 to 4 fundament of PVC pipe that ’s 4 or 6 inches wide . Cut a wide , inverted “ v ” in the bottom with a carpenter’s saw or metal saw . Then secure the top to the fence with some tie telegram or a zip tie . filling and chill .
To keep the crushed huitre shell approachable but out of the rain , I bid it under the coop in the field I call the moat . To keep shells from being covered when chickens scratch up , put them in a low pot , a check window box or a plastic cement - mixing tub . Heck , even an old alimentation till would work .
This account originally appeared in the November / December 2018 issue ofChickensmagazine .
