Cindy Cortis

07/14/2019

We are a small hatchery that offers rare chickens. We are involved with the livestock conservatory in helping bring back breeds of chickens

07/12/2019

All Birds must go We are NPIP Zoning says all Chickens must go 2.00 a bird babies to adults 55 Flower Hens, Cream Leg Bar, German Bielefelders, Icelandics, Giant Barbezieux, Reg Bresse, Golden Bresse, Silver Bresse, White crest polish and Pavlayskya 989-701-7045

06/19/2019

How to Handel Pecking order
ByThe Happy Coop

We’ve all heard the phrase ‘the pecking order’. In our minds eye, we likely see colleagues and co-workers neatly arranged in order of ‘merit’. From the CEO down to the janitor, everyone has a place in the ‘pecking order’.

The term ‘pecking order’ was first coined in 1921 by Thorleif Schjelderup-Ebbe to describe the hierarchy of flock dynamics and it came into popular usage in the 1930s.

At times the pecking order can make life extremely difficult for both chickens and chicken keepers! Keep reading to understand exactly what the pecking order is and how you can stop common problems caused because of the pecking order.
What Is The Pecking Order?

So, exactly what is it and how does it relate to you and your flock?

It’s a system by which birds arrange their social standing in the flock. The higher ranked birds will get the best food, water and roosts while the lower placed birds will get the leftovers.

This method of organization places each member of the flock on a ‘heirachy ladder’. At the top of the ladder will be the head rooster (or hen if no rooster is present). This complex social order is designed to ensure that there is good cohesion between members, and few if any petty squabbles…

This sort of co-operation between members of the flock ensures the survival of the flock by giving the best chances to the fittest birds.

It is a flexible structure and within the flock there are usually three different types of social order going on:

Rooster to Rooster
Hens to Hens
Roosters to Hens

A rooster may go up the ladder if he mounts a successful campaign against the leader. He becomes the new chicken-in-charge! And the defeated roosters go down the ladder, as do weak or sickly birds.

Roosters that are lower in the order, crow less frequently and rarely mate.

Hens have their own ‘girls’ only ladder. The matriarchs of the flock will be up to the top of the ladder, with less dominant birds at the bottom. In this system the older, stronger and more savvy hens will be at the top.

Young pullets just coming to point of lay, will try to ‘move up’ the social ladder quickly.

If a bird tries to go ‘out of turn’, she will earn glares, pecks and feather pulling from the higher ‘ranked’ hens. Usually a ‘look’ or a quick peck is enough to remind the lower ranking hen she has overstepped the boundary.

The serious games of the pecking order start when chicks are around six weeks of age. Chicks will start rushing at each other, bumping chests and flaring feathers. These are all methods used to intimidate flock mates at any stage of life. By the time they leave the brooder, they will have their own pecking order sorted out.
Pecking Order Problems

Whilst the pecking order can create a sense of harmony within a flock it can also create absolute havoc, with chickens fighting each other for their position within the order.

A full on pecking order assault is a violent and terrible thing to see. Older birds can be relentless, drawing blood, causing serious injury even death. There is nothing gentle about the pecking order.
1. Adding New Birds to Your Flock

Adding birds to your existing flock will cause a shift in the pecking order. The older birds will be very suspicious of the new members and can be quite violent about it.

If you do add new birds to your flock, it needs to be done slowly and cautiously. You should never add less than two birds to an established flock.

The method that has worked well for me in the past is the separation pen.

This is an area that the new hens can be put safely without the older girls being able to peck them. They can look, pace around the enclosure but can’t get in. I do this for a couple of weeks then open up the enclosure.

When you do open up the temporary enclosure you need to have places the new birds can hide or run to if flock members get really mean.

I have not had any integration problems using this method- a couple of pecks here and there, but nothing too vicious. As a keeper, you should not intervene unless blood has been drawn, then you need to remove the inured bird quickly and isolate them.

Remember to read Introducing New Chickens to Your Existing Flock for more help!
2. Sick or Injured Birds

Chickens rarely show any signs of illness or weakness. If they do, other flock members will pick on them and either drive them from the flock or kill them.

This sounds awful, but remember, the flock in the wild is as strong as its’ weakest member. It’s simply a survival tactic.

If you have a chicken that is constantly being pecked at, you will need to isolate her away from harm. A large crate or ‘chicken hospital’ area will do very well. Check her over carefully for peck damage and also try to find out what is wrong with the bird.

The victim will need to be isolated until wounds are healed- now comes the tough part, trying to re-integrate the affected bird. Use the segregation pen which we mentioned earlier on for a few days and then reintegrate her.
3. Bully Birds

Sometimes you have a hen who is a bully to everyone. Often she will be in the middle of the pecking order, rarely at the top.

My bully bird is called Red Sonya and she is mid-level pecking order wise. When she sees a new girl anywhere near food she makes it her business to let them know they are not entitled to one beakful of food- it’s hers! She dutifully ‘patrols’ the food stations for a day or so then loses interest. She has made her point and the newbies avoid her!

Everybody meet Red Sonya

If you have a hen like this, the best way to ‘straighten her out’ is the segregation pen for a few days.

The pecking order will change while she is in isolation, so when she gets re-introduced she will be a ‘newbie’ and treated accordingly.

Once in a while you will get two or more hens that form a ‘bully club’. Use the same treatment for them, except re-introduce them to the flock on separate days- this should break the pattern of bullying!
How to Avoid Pecking Order Problems

The good news is that much can be done by the keeper to ensure that old and new flock members integrate fairly peacefully.

First and most importantly, each bird needs to have sufficient ‘personal space’.

There really isn’t a ‘perfect formula’ for space requirements, often quoted is four square foot/bird for floor space. If they are confined within the coop twenty four hours a day, I would certainly add as much room as possible, since boredom leads to mischief!

If however, your birds are allowed to free range, coop space doesn’t really become an issue until winter. I provide my girls with one foot of roosting space per bird. Mine all cram together on the roosts at night, leaving lots of empty roosting space! As you can see, it’s very much an individual thing- some birds like space, others not so much.

Make sure you provide lots of roosting spots so that a hen can get away if she needs to. Providing places to ‘hide’ is important- old boxes, straw bales (outside the coop) dark quiet areas in the barn/shed. If you can think along the lines of a two year old playing hide and seek, you will have great success!

Don’t forget to provide extra feeding and watering stations. I usually provide four for a flock of thirty hens, this gives everyone a chance to eat and drink in peace.
Conclusion

Congratulations! You have survived the ‘pecking order’ social upheaval! It gets easier every year, believe me!

The pecking order is a necessary evil for flocks to understand exact where each hen fits within their own hierarchy.

Those birds towards the top of the hierarchy get first access to the feed, water and roosting spots, whilst lower members of the pecking order are left with the scraps.

Sometimes the pecking order can become a real problem, but if you follow the steps outlined above you will be fine!

06/18/2019

Pendulous crop in backyard chickens can be a stressful event to manage. by Matt

Table of Contents (Quickly Jump To Information)

Pendulous crop in backyard chickens can be a stressful event to manage.
What is pendulous crop?
Why does pendulous crop happen?
How do I know whether my hen has pendulous crop?
What can I do about pendulous crop?

You might even be wondering what pendulous crop even IS, especially if you’re a new chicken mama or papa.

Well, I’m not going to pretend pendulous crop isn’t serious – it can definitely be an issue and it must be addressed.

Without taking care of it, your chicken might not absorb the nutrients she needs and eventually, will waste away, lose weight, and die.

In this article, I’m going to tell you exactly what pendulous crop in backyard chickens is, and how to deal with it.

At the end, you’ll have a good idea of how to handle this situation, should you ever need to help one of your chickens!

What is pendulous crop?

You might have noticed the word “pendulous” in pendulous crop, and that’ll give you a starting point to understand this health issue.

In case you don’t know, the crop is part of your chicken’s digestive system. It’s where food is stored and begins the breaking down process.

As you can imagine, it’s critical the crop is healthy and in good shape to help your hen digest her food.

When a hen gets pendulous crop, it can be due to a couple things:

The crop is impacted, and the weight of the food the hen consumes is getting heavier and stretching the crop.

The hen might also be anatomically predisposed to having pendulous crop, meaning her crop is larger, or naturally sags more than it should.

Either way, the crop has become impacted and needs to be cleared out.

You might wonder what the difference between pendulous crop and impacted crop is. Basically, pendulous crop is a type of impacted crop.
Why does pendulous crop happen?

Simply put, the reason pendulous crop happens in backyard chickens is because the crop stretches due to too much food or possibly the anatomy of the chicken.

After your hen swallows food, for whatever reason (possibly a piece of food that’s too big, too much food, etc), her meal gets stuck, and can’t leave the crop.

As your hen eats more and more, the pieces of food then sit there, fermenting, and not getting passed through the digestive system.

While pendulous crop is an issue by itself, it also means the chicken isn’t getting nutrients, and eventually, the chicken can die of starvation.

How do I know whether my hen has pendulous crop?

If you see her crop is bulging and sagging and possibly moving around (meaning, it doesn’t feel like a nice, right, round ball about the size of a peach), she might have pendulous crop.

If you notice her crop isn’t smaller in the morning or if your backyard chicken looks physically poorly or sick, then she might have crop issues.

It’s always best to double check with a vet!

What can I do about pendulous crop?

First, make sure the chicken actually has a crop issue by keeping her off food for 24 hours (still give water).

When crops are full, they can be quite large – anywhere from the size of a golf ball (in a young chicken) to the size of a peach or orange in an adult.

So, you should first determine whether the crop is actually functioning.

If you stop food for 24 hours, and notice the crop becomes completely empty the next day (for example, it was very full and now you can’t see much of a lump at all), the crop is working the food towards the rest of her digestive system and likely not impacting.

If it’s still full and you know she hasn’t eaten anything, her crop is likely impacted (you’ll want to double check this with a vet).

To empty the crop, you will have to “burp” your chicken (which is not as much fun as it sounds).

Burping consists of helping your hen regurgitate the feed that’s in her crop, and (hopefully) removing whatever is causing the crop to be impacted.

You can read full instructions about dealing with impacted crop and emptying it in this article.

After the crop is empty, keep the hen off food for another 24 hours (still give water) and observe her closely for signs of additional problems. (Double check with a vet about any signs you should look for in your particular backyard chicken – they’re all different).

You can then slowly reintroduce food, making sure it’s in small pieces. If you’re still concerned, you can err on the side of caution and offer moistened food that’s easy for your backyard chicken’s digestive system to break down.

You can also mix raw organic apple cider vinegar WITH THE MOTHER (more on apple cider vinegar here) into her water – the beneficial bacteria will help her digestive system.

We also have apple cider vinegar granules in the store, which are a shelf-stable probiotic.

You can also offer dried oregano with her feed, and parsley (which are both full of amazing nutrients for chickens).

As for food, dried river shrimp are a good option – they’re small and easy for beaks to break apart. They’re also very high in protein, and if your hen is still recovering and nervous, they’re very tempting for even the pickiest eater.

You can also mix their feed with brewer’s yeast, if you want to make sure your hen is getting plenty of vitamins after her bout with pendulous crop.

Our brewer’s yeast is fortified with vitamin B 3, B6, and B12 and garlic, oregano, and echinacea (all herbs traditionally used to support healthy immune systems).

It’s important to remember that if your backyard chicken gets an impacted and pendulous crop once, it’s possible she might get it again.

The best thing to do is keep an eye on your backyard chicken and double check the crop is working correctly, and you don’t see any further signs of pendulous crop.

06/11/2019

Four ingredient Russian Dinner by Jen Nikolaus

Easy chicken dinner with only 4 ingredients!

Prep Time10 mins
Cook Time1 hr
Total Time1 hr 10 mins

Course: Main
Servings: 4 -6
​​
[Click and drag to move]

Ingredients

1 bottle Russian dressing
1 packet dry onion soup mix
1 jar apricot jam/preserves
4-6 boneless skinless chicken breasts

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Trim chicken of any fat. Rinse and pat dry and place in a 9x13 pan.
Mix dressing, soup mix and jam together in a bowl. Pour over chicken. Bake, uncovered, in preheated oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Serve over rice. Enjoy!!
NOTE:There's no wrong or right to the amount of jam and Russian dressing. The last time I made it, I used the entire bottle of dressing but used about 3/4 of the bottle of jam. Do whatever you think tastes good. Either way, you will have plenty of sauce left over to drizzle over rice!

06/11/2019

Four ingredient Russian Dinner by Jen Nikolaus

Easy chicken dinner with only 4 ingredients!

Prep Time10 mins
Cook Time1 hr
Total Time1 hr 10 mins

Course: Main
Servings: 4 -6
​​
[Click and drag to move]


Ingredients

1 bottle Russian dressing
1 packet dry onion soup mix
1 jar apricot jam/preserves
4-6 boneless skinless chicken breasts

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Trim chicken of any fat. Rinse and pat dry and place in a 9x13 pan.
Mix dressing, soup mix and jam together in a bowl. Pour over chicken. Bake, uncovered, in preheated oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Serve over rice. Enjoy!!
NOTE:There's no wrong or right to the amount of jam and Russian dressing. The last time I made it, I used the entire bottle of dressing but used about 3/4 of the bottle of jam. Do whatever you think tastes good. Either way, you will have plenty of sauce left over to drizzle over rice!

06/11/2019

Buy 5 get one free

Simply the finest dual purpose bird on the planet. Males were bred to have extremely large breasts that marble. Males are finished in 12-13 weeks merely a month more than a rock cornish at 8-10 weeks. Females lay 250+ eggs a year. Great conversion ratio. Forage very well. Best tasting bird in the world, breast meat actually marbles if finished off right. The Bresse has a distinctive red comb, white body and blue legs. Blue legs start coming in at 3 weeks to a month.
Here is a you tube that you might find informitive

Which chicken breed should I choose. Is there a breed that can compete with modern hybrids? Australorp, New Hampshire, Rhode Island Red, ... which one should...

06/09/2019

Enjoy going to the Farmers market

Enjoy going to the farmers market, or going for the first time...
Going to the farmers market can be a fun and pleasurable business. You get fresher food plus you can get what is in season and most of all you support local farmers. Since you know we raise chickens we get much of our fruits and vegetables at the local market on Sat.
I always check this site before I go. It helps me plans menues also.
https://www.seasonalfoodguide.org
Type in your state and time of year and you will know what is in season.. Happy Hunting

06/07/2019

Chicken Feather Loss Cause and Cure
by the Happy Coop

It can be a frightening sight, walking out towards your chicken coop and seeing feathers scattered everywhere.

My first thought is usually the worst- has a predator broken into the coop and attacked my chickens?

Luckily, I haven’t ever lost any of my chickens to a predator and their feather loss is normally something much less serious. The most common reason for a chicken losing their feathers is the annual moult; however this isn’t the only reason.

Let’s take a look at the most common reasons why chickens lose their feathers and our three favourite cures:

Best Chicken Feed for Molting
Apple Cider Vinegar
Chicken Wormer Pellets

Annual Moulting

The first and most common reason why chickens lose their feathers is the ‘annual moult‘.

A moult is when a chicken sheds its old feathers and replaces them with new feathers. Chickens moult during the end of the egg laying season, in the fall. This is normally closely linked to daylight hours. So, during the fall when there is a drop in the number of daylight hours, you can expect your chickens to start their moult.

Chicken’s Back Moulting © Thomas Kriese

You will noticed when they start to moult they lose feathers around their neck first. This will spread to their back and then move to their breast until finally their tail feathers drop out.

The typical moult lasts around 6 weeks, however older chickens moult much slower and it can take them up to 10-12 weeks.

In addition to their feathers dropping out, you will also notice that their comb will lose some of its colour and it won’t be a vibrant red any longer.

Finally, during a moult you will notice that the amount of eggs they lay will greatly reduce and most likely stop all together. This is because chickens need lots of protein to make eggs, but also, their feathers are 80% protein. So your chicken can either moult or lay eggs, it doesn’t have enough protein to do both at the same time.
Can You Stop Their Moult?

Collecting feathers from my chickens’ moult

When people find out their chicken in moulting the first question they ask is can you stop the moult?

Well, not really. But you can help speed it up.

We mentioned above that when chickens moult they require a lot of protein to make their new feathers.

So the first thing you can do is stop feeding them layers pellets and give them food which has a higher percentage of protein in it. I like to feed my chickens game bird feed during their moult because it is 20% protein- this is double the amount of protein in layers pellets.

addition to changing their feed you can also give them tonics. Personally I don’t give them any tonics but a commonly used tonic is apple cider vinegar.

You can mix this in with their water supply to give them a boost of minerals and vitamins.

One supplement we do give our chickens is ginger powder and we’ve wrote about this extensively here.

You can mix ginger powder up with their game feed and it helps to boost their circulation and spread vitamins and nutrients throughout their body.

Used to help boost your chickens’ immune system.
Easy to use, just mix it into their water.
Can also be used to help treat against mites

Check Latest Price
Broody Chickens

If only one of your chickens has lost their feathers, it could be that she is just broody.

A broody hen is one that wants to hatch their own chicks and she will lay on top of their eggs all day long. You will easily notice that she is broody because she won’t leave the nesting box and will rarely eat.

A Broody Buff Orpington

When they are broody they tend to pluck their own breast feathers out so their skin is in direct contact with the eggs.

This isn’t healthy for your hen if it continues for a long period of time so make sure you read how to stop a broody hen.
Pecking Order and Bullying

Chickens can also lose their feathers when they are being bullied.

If you’ve kept chickens for any length of time you know that they often jostle and compete to move up the ‘pecking order’. The pecking order is the chickens ‘hierarchy of status’ and chickens at the top of it control the rest of the flock.

Whilst this jostling for pecking order is normally harmless, occasionally it can turn into bullying and hens get singled out and targeted.

I’ve found the more aggressive breeds are those that are genetically ‘closer’ to original jungle fowl.

Establishing The Pecking Order

If a single hen is being targeted, their feathers will get plucked out and their skin may also get broken. Broody hens often get targeted because they have plucked out their own breast feathers and the other chickens will then peck at the red flesh.

This can be very dangerous because chickens are attracted to blood so they will peck the injured chicken even more.

You can spread tree pruning sealer onto the cut to help protect the injured chicken. The sealer will dry hard nearly straight away and will give the chicken time to recover. Also, the sealer is black so the chickens won’t be anywhere near as keen to peck at it, and if they do it will rub off on their beak so you know which hens have been bullying. You can then either isolate the culprits or use a blinder for a few days.

I always prefer to isolate the culprit instead.

To do this I place them in a separate smaller pen for a couple of days. What’s interesting is that when the bully returns to the pen they get knocked down a peg or two by the other girls because the bully is consider ‘new’.

You will notice when you add new chickens to your existing flock there will also be some jostling for position in the pecking order and as a result some of your chickens will lose their feathers.

This should settle down in a few days if you introduce the chickens to each other properly. If you find they are still pecking out each other’s feathers you will need to separate the new and old chickens for a few days and then attempt to reintroduce them to each other.

The final reason chickens will bully each other is because there isn’t enough room in either their coop or run.

Chickens need at least 3 square foot each inside the coop and 15 square foot each inside the run. If they have less than this, they will bully each other and peck out each other’s feathers.
Parasites and Disease

In addition to moulting, the only other occasion when feather loss can be flock-wide is when your chickens have a disease or are infected with parasites.

Parasites can cause your hens to lose their feathers and also stop laying eggs.

The most common parasites are lice and red mites. Mites will live in the chicken coop and only appear during the night to suck blood from the chickens. Whereas, lice actually live on the chickens’ body so they are easier to spot.

In both cases you can use poultry dust from your local hardware store to remove the parasites.

If you are treating mites you can spread the poultry dust in the coop whereas if you are treating lice you need to apply the poultry dust directly onto your chickens.

To prevent either of the parasites returning make sure you regularly clean your chicken coop and wash your hands both before and after handling your chickens.

If your chickens have lost their feathers for over 12 weeks and there is no obvious sign as to why, make sure you visit your vet just to double check they are ok.
Roosters

Surprisingly, roosters can be the cause of chickens losing their feathers as well.

When roosters mate with hens, the rooster holds onto the hen’s back with their beak- this is known as treading.

When this happens the rooster can quite easily pull the feathers out of the hen’s neck and back. If the rooster only mates with a certain hen then over a period of time the balding can be very obvious!

Fortunately if your rooster is placed with several hens then this balding won’t be noticeable.

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Completely natural pellet that improves general health of your flock.

It works but targeting the worms inside your chicken’s gut and eliminating them.
Most effective as a proactive measure to prevent worms.

Check Latest Price
Change in Diet

A sudden change in a chicken’s diet can inadvertently trigger a moult.

In fact, this was a common technique used by industrial grade farmers to force their chickens to moult and improve the quality of eggs they laid. Fortunately, this is now illegal in many places.

By changing their diet if you’re not careful you can reduce the amount of protein your chickens are getting and this can cause them to moult.

I’ve previously wrote about the importance of giving your chickens good quality layers pellets and what happened when we stopped giving our chickens pellets.

If you want healthy, happy chickens you need to make sure they get access to a high protein diet, and the simplest way to do this is through layers pellets.

The key thing to remember is that normally when chickens lose their feathers it’s completely harmless. However sometimes it can be a cause for concern, so make sure to give your chickens a thorough inspection if/when they do lose their feathers.

06/05/2019

Grit and Oyster Shell: Do Your Chickens Need Them?
By The Happy Coop

Unfortunately a lot of people think that grit and oyster shell are the same thing.

They are not.

Your hens require both oyster shell and grit. Without it, serious health issues can arise, such as Sour Crop and Brittle Bones.

So now we know that our ladies need oyster shell and grit as additives to their diet, but why do they need them?

Keep reading to learn why your hens need them, how much they need and how to feed it to them.
Chicken Grit: All You Need To Know
Why Do Chickens Need Grit?

Chickens don’t have the means to grind or masticate their food since they don’t have teeth so they need something to reduce the food particle size to a manageable form.

The grit, after ingestion, travels down into the gizzard where it will stay for quite a while until it is worn down sufficiently to pass through the bird without causing harm.

Once it settles there, it goes to work helping the muscular gizzard to grind down the food into a nutritious paste from which the gut absorbs all the nutrients and water before eliminating the waste.

Without grit the food would not be rendered into useable form for the bird. In fact, insufficient grit can cause things like impactions because the gut cannot deal with lumps of food – it just isn’t set up that way.

In general, the chickens’ digestive system is highly efficient, but without grit, it will come to a halt.

How to Feed Grit to Chickens

The grit itself is made from granite or flint that is chipped into smaller sizes for chickens to be able to gulp it down easily.

Grit can be easily purchased at the feed store or online and is pretty cheap since it will last a long time.

You should always provide free choice grit for your birds; this means they should always have access to grit.

Remember, it is better to have too much than not enough.

Many people make the mistake of thinking that their birds will get all they need if they are free ranging and the answer is ‘it depends’. Some soils don’t have much grit in them so the birds don’t have anything to work with.

They usually manage to find suitable grit during their free ranging expeditions, but if they are confined (in a pen/run) it may be a problem to find sufficient grit.

Chickens that are confined will absolutely need additional grit to aid their digestion if you feed them anything else other than the layer feed. Always have a feeder of grit available for them to use if they want it.

Chicks will not initially need any grit until you start feeding them things other than crumbles. Once you start giving them treats or clumps of grass or dandelions they will need the grit.

Up until 8 weeks or so, they will need ‘chick grit’ which is much finer. After the 8th week they can graduate to regular chicken grit.

The Best Chicken Grit

Used to help your chickens digest their food properly
Comes in an easy to reseal bag meaning it lasts longer
Grit pieces perfectly sized for adult laying hens

Oyster Shell for Chickens

Oyster shell is exactly what it says; crushed oyster shell.

It probably contains other shell too, but they are all high in calcium which is what our ladies need.

Oyster shell is also known as soluble grit. This is because it dissolves in the hens gut and is absorbed by the body and stored for later use in making shells or strengthening bones.

Even though we are told that a layer feed is complete and that the hens do not need anything other than the feed, it may not contain enough calcium for your hens.

Did you know that an egg is between 94-97% calcium carbonate? That’s an awful lot of calcium!

As with people, chickens are individual creatures so the needs of one hen may not be the same as her neighbors.

Some require more calcium as they are prolific layers, others – not so much. Yet others may have a shell gland defect that requires more calcium than normal.

Only laying hens require oyster shell; chicks, the older chickens and roosters do not require any oyster shell added to their diet. In fact, too much calcium can be detrimental to a hens’ health, so it is best to offer up oyster shell in a separate container. Those hens that need it will take it, the others will not.

You can also feed egg shells back to the hens for extra calcium. I usually ‘cook’ my used egg shells in the oven for about 30 minutes after I’m done baking. I turn the oven off and set the shells on a tray.

This not only makes them easier to crush but will destroy any bacteria present.

Make sure you crush the shell well enough that they aren’t recognizable as eggs otherwise those smart hens might get some ideas.

Some folks won’t feed the shells back to their hens because of bacteria or fear of egg eating. The bacteria are taken care of by the cooking and I have never had any hens that eat eggs, despite being given crushed eggshell. If you think about it logically – before oyster shell became freely available, Grandma would have tossed out used eggshells with the daily scraps for the hens to pick over.

Used to increase the strength of your chickens’ egg shells
Contains actual oyster shell
Easy seal bag so product will stay fresh and last longer

How Much and How Often?

The best practice is to leave out a bowl of each item. I have a divided feeder attached to the wall of the coop – one side for grit and the other for oyster shell.

This way the hens can help themselves when they feel they need one or both items. Some people sprinkle oyster shell into the feed; this is not a good idea.

Too much calcium can lead to problems with the kidneys which can be deadly. Let the hens self-regulate, they will do what’s necessary for them.

It’s also best to let the hen self-regulate her grit intake. As we mentioned, a little grit can go a long way so the hen will be able to ‘top up’ when she needs it.
Nutritional Value of Grit and Oyster Shell

Oyster shell has calcium which is a necessity for the hens. Not only does it ensure a good hard shell on the eggs, but it also ensures that the hen has strong and healthy bones.

A hen that has a very low calcium level can suffer from broken bones; most noticeably in the feet and legs from jumping up or down to perches.

Grit has no nutritional value in and of itself but without it the bird would not be able to process food properly. The grit helps to unlock all the nutrients in the food by grinding it down to a thick paste.

Sour crop (see our article) can be caused by insufficient grit in the gizzard. When a chicken eats, the food goes down into the crop for storage and later digestion. If the food cannot be processed due to lack of grit, the food will start to rot and your hen will develop sour crop.

Holding the grit in the gizzard is essential to the bird in order to process and derive nutrition from the food.

If a hen eats nothing but feed, it is said that they can live without grit, but our backyard girls enjoy free ranging and ingesting all sorts of seeds, greens and bugs so grit is necessary for these ladies.
Industrial Hens and Grit

An interesting point here is that industrial hens are not given grit in any form.

It is stated they do not need it since they eat nothing but layer feed. The following link casts doubt over that assertion.

If you have ever seen some of the ex-battery hens when they are re-homed, they look pretty rough and require lots of TLC and special attention.
Summary

Remember grit and oyster shell are necessities for your hens’ health and welfare. Add these goodies to the menu for your hens to keep them healthy and active.

Both items are cheap enough and will last a long time. I usually buy bags of 50lb oyster shell and 25lb grit; both will last for months and I have 50+ birds.

You can simply place some grit and oyster shell in separate bowls and your hens will self-regulate their intake.