Pettex Chicken & Poultry Grit, 25kg

Pettex Chicken & Poultry Grit – 25kg

Birds have no teeth. What they swallow goes into the gizzard and is ground against whatever hard material the bird has picked up, which is grit. A hen with the run of a bare, stony yard finds her own; one on grass, in a covered run or on deep litter does not, and grinds less efficiently for the want of it. Putting grit in front of her is the fix, and this is the 25kg sack of it.

Most bagged poultry grits are a mixture: a hard insoluble fraction for grinding, and a soluble calcium fraction — usually shell or limestone — for eggshell. Pettex publish no specification for this product on their own website. There is no poultry range on pettex.co.uk at all, and no composition, grade or particle size is given anywhere on it, so this page says what a poultry grit does and leaves the bag itself to declare what is in it.

Performance & Benefits

• 25kg, which is a long time's supply for a small flock — grit is taken in grams, not handfuls.
• Offered free-choice, so each bird takes what it needs and no dosing is involved.
• Supports the mechanical grinding of whole grain, greens and forage in the gizzard.
• Useful for any bird that has no free access to bare, stony ground.
• Keeps indefinitely as long as it is dry, so a big sack carries none of the risk a big sack of feed does.

Suitable For

• Laying hens, and poultry generally, kept on grass, in covered runs or on deep litter.
• Flocks fed whole grain, greens or forage alongside their pellets.
• Smallholders and keepers with enough birds to work through 25kg.
• Offering alongside the normal ration, never instead of it.
• Not a substitute for a balanced layers feed, and not something to lean on for shell quality on its own — a layers pellet such as the Fancy Feeds Layers Pellets does that job properly.

Feeding

• Offer it free-choice in a dry hopper or a small dish the birds cannot tip over, or scatter it on dry ground.
• Keep it topped up and keep it dry. Wet grit cakes and birds will walk past it.
• There is no rate to measure out; birds regulate their own intake.
• Check the declaration on the bag before you offer it free-choice to growing birds or cockerels. Grits carrying a soluble calcium fraction are not appropriate for non-laying birds, and Pettex do not state on their website which type this is.
• Fresh water available at all times.

Composition & Analysis

• Pettex publish no composition, analysis, grade or particle size for this product. Their website carries cat litter, aquarium gravels and sands and a chinchilla dusting powder, with no poultry range at all.
• No calcium, mineral or particle-size figure is therefore quoted here. The declaration printed on the bag is the only source for it.
• Pack size 25kg.
• The previous version of this page gave the composition as "mixed materials, including hard grit and calcium-rich shell material". That was not sourced from Pettex and has been removed.
• If you need to know whether this is an insoluble flint grit, a shell grit or a mix of the two before you buy, ring us and we will read the bag to you.