Re: granite grit or crushed oyster shell?

Jan Flora wrote:
In article <45b5dd24$0$8713$ed2619ec@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"Jill" <news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Jan Flora wrote:
In article <45b4cf88$0$8750$ed2619ec@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
"Jill" <news@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Frank Thompson wrote:
I am feeding game birds on a commercial gamebird ration which is
primarily a mixture of a variety of whole grains. It has some
pellets similar to rabbit pellets with supplements. Birds wont eat
the pellets so I am adding VitaPac supplement to drinking water.
To aid in digestion of hard grains would granite grit, crushed
oyster shell, or both be preferable?
Frank
Georgia
Leave both in separate containers somewhere accessible
Don't mix them with food
The granite grit is to aid digestion
The Oystershell is more for good shell production which is just as
important with breeding birds
I live on the ocean and offer sand/small gravel off the beach
to my birds for grit. They love it. And, as a treat, I try to bring
them some seaweed.
We are also beside the sea ;)
We offer our birds grit as well -- the stuff off the beach can be too high in salt which can disrupt their metabolism in other ways.

I looked up the nutritional analysis of seaweed the other day -- of
all the wild foods in Alaska, kelp has the highest level of calcium in
it. (That surprised me.)
Seaweed is wonderful stuff for SO many elements but the salt can be a problem

You can rinse the salt off, if you want to. Sea water has the
same pH as human tears and blood.

(As an aside: when my thyroid goofed up, my doc told me to eat
bladderwrack/popweed. It's a seaweed that grows across the bay
from my house. I tried it and found it delicious. Don't know if
it was an intuitive appetite for it or not, but the stuff is
yummy. And my thyroid calmed down and started working properly
again.)

We graze our cattle on the beach in the summer. The cows love
the saltgrass and seaweed. They are on 17,000 acres (don't know
the conversion to hectacres, for those of you in the UK and Oz),
but the cows go from grazing grass on the hillsides to grazing
on sedges and seaweed when the tide goes out.

I once asked a friend who has a PhD in Animal Physiology if animals have an intuitive appetite (meaning: when they need a
nutrient, will they crave it and seek it out). He said no.
I disagree with him, even through all I am is a ranch mom --
no fancy degrees in Animal Husbandry.

I'm guessing that all of you gardeners who live on the sea
already know to put seaweed on your garden beds, right? It's
terrific stuff! People in southeast Alaska who have rock, but
no topsoil, sometimes carry seaweed off the beach, dump it in
piles up near their cabins and plant their potatoes right in the seaweed. They always make a good crop!


Lucky you. Here in our state harvesting seaweed from the beach is illegal :-( Don't know about the rules elsewhere but I can remember my dad using it on the garden as mulch.

I got a 100% lay today. Got an egg from each hen. I think
the girls are happy because I gave them potato peelings, a bunch
of oranges cut in half, a new tub of grit, scratch (corn & winter
wheat), warm water and some laying pellets yesterday. They were
making those "happy chicken" noises when I left the coop... I try
to spoil the girls a bit in wintertime, because winter lasts so
long at my latitude. We'll have snow here until mid-April.

Jan in Alaska
59N., 151W.



--
Ginny - in West Australia

When you see the sun rise, remember,
it's a good day - you're still alive!
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: granite grit or crushed oyster shell?
    ... pellets similar to rabbit pellets with supplements. ... To aid in digestion of hard grains would granite grit, ... important with breeding birds ... We offer our birds grit as well -- the stuff off the beach can be too high ...
    (sci.agriculture.poultry)
  • Re: granite grit or crushed oyster shell?
    ... similar to rabbit pellets with supplements. ... Birds wont eat the pellets ... The granite grit is to aid digestion ... so they eat the grit to grind up their ...
    (sci.agriculture.poultry)
  • Re: Macaws (was) Re: Any outdoor bird parks?
    ... I feed her the organic pellets, but I don't think they're Kaytee. ... With small birds it's easy to allow this with some ... My Vet sells Harrison's ... With our first Macaw that was raised on seed, we tried pellets, he did not ...
    (rec.pets.birds)
  • Re: AKICIF: weird sabbathy question
    ... and bows. ... Can you point to incidents of mass lead poisoning from hunted ... are used as well as steel), but that's due to lead poisoning in birds ... caused by them *eating* the pellets off of the ground or lake bottoms, ...
    (rec.arts.sf.fandom)
  • Re: granite grit or crushed oyster shell?
    ... similar to rabbit pellets with supplements. ... Birds wont eat the pellets ... and Oystershell grits are good choices for calcium as they are ...
    (sci.agriculture.poultry)