How to Make Grit for Chickens: A Complete Guide

Part of our guide on best electric fence for chickens

A 50-pound bag of crushed granite from a landscape supplier costs $8 and makes grit for a year, while the same amount of bagged poultry grit runs $25-30.

What You Need

Say you're setting up grit for six hens. You'll need a few pounds of material and containers to hold it. Most of what you need comes from hardware or landscape stores, not a feed shop.

Gather these supplies before you start. The granite and shells are the grit itself. Everything else is for crushing, sizing, and feeding it out.

• Crushed granite or flint: 5-10 pounds to start, from a landscape or masonry supplier in 3/8-inch or smaller grade
• Oyster or scallop shells: whole shells from a seafood market or crushed from the store, 3-5 pounds
• Hardware cloth: 1/4-inch mesh for sifting, about a square foot
• Hammer or mallet: for breaking larger stones down to size
• Shallow dishes or PVC feeders: one for grit, one for shells, both at least 4 inches wide
• Safety glasses: granite chips fly when you're crushing it

Sourcing and Crushing Insoluble Grit

Picture a hen's gizzard grinding whole corn and seed hulls. That work needs hard, angular stone that holds its edge for weeks. Granite and flint do that. Limestone, sandstone, and most decorative rock crumble too fast.

Check masonry suppliers first. Ask for crushed granite in 3/8-inch minus or pea gravel grades. A 50-pound bag runs $6-12 and lasts a backyard flock a year or more. If they only stock larger rock, buy it anyway: you'll break it down. It helps to understand teeth in chicken before going further.

Spread a few pounds of stone on concrete or a thick board. Wear safety glasses. Strike the larger pieces with a hammer until most fall between 2mm and 5mm: roughly the size of a match head to a peppercorn. Chicks need finer grit, around 1-2mm, so crush a separate batch if you're raising young birds.

Sift the crushed stone through 1/4-inch hardware cloth to catch oversized chunks. Toss those back for another round. Dust and powder fall through, and that's fine: it won't hurt anything, though hens ignore particles under 1mm.

1. Lay crushed granite on a hard surface and wear safety glasses.
2. Strike larger stones with a hammer until pieces measure 2-5mm for adults or 1-2mm for chicks.
3. Sift through 1/4-inch hardware cloth to remove oversized pieces.
4. Store sized grit in a dry bucket or bin with a lid.

Preparing Soluble Shell Grit

Hens pull calcium from shell grit to form eggshells, especially in the 12 hours before they lay. Oyster and scallop shells break down in the gizzard and release that calcium on demand. They also provide a light grinding action, but the real job is nutrition. If that sounds like your situation, read up on balancing protein and calcium intake next.

Whole shells from a fish market or your own kitchen work. Rinse them, bake at 250°F for 20 minutes to kill bacteria, then let them cool. Crush them in a heavy bag with a mallet or run them through a hand-crank grinder until pieces fall between 2mm and 8mm. Larger bits are fine: hens break them further.

Crushed scallop shell sold as poultry grit is already sized. It costs $0.30-0.50 per pound in 5-pound bags. If you're buying rather than making it, this is the one to buy: it's cheaper than branded blends and does the same thing.

Keep insoluble grit and shell grit separate. Hens regulate their own calcium, and mixing the two makes it harder for them to pick what they need. A laying hen takes a few shell pieces daily; a molting or non-laying bird takes almost none. For the detail, see our notes on treating respiratory disease in chickens.

Mixing and Storing Your DIY Grit

Say you've crushed 5 pounds of granite and 3 pounds of shell. Store each in its own container, dry and covered. Plastic bins with snap lids work. Label them: they look similar from a distance.

Some keepers blend a small amount of shell grit into the insoluble grit for convenience, around 1 part shell to 3 parts granite. That's acceptable for a mixed-age flock where everyone is laying, but it removes the self-regulation benefit. Better to offer both separately and let each hen decide.

Grit stays good indefinitely if moisture doesn't get in. Damp grit clumps and can grow mold on organic dust. Check stored grit every few months and stir it if it's been sitting. For the detail, see our notes on chicken communication.

Cheap Containers and Feeders for Grit

Picture two shallow dishes mounted on a coop wall, one with gray granite grit, one with white shell pieces. Hens visit them a few times a day, peck what they need, and move on. That's the whole system.

Plastic plant saucers 6-8 inches wide work and cost under $2 each. Mount them at mid-back height so bedding doesn't scratch in. Terracotta plant bases are heavier and won't tip, but they crack in a freeze.

A 3-inch PVC pipe cut to 12 inches with a 90-degree elbow at the bottom makes a gravity feeder that holds a week's worth. Cap the top, drill a few drain holes in the elbow, and screw it to the wall. Fill from above. Grit trickles into the elbow as hens take it.

For a brooder, use jar lids or small glass dishes 3-4 inches wide. Chicks make a mess. Rinse and refill every two days rather than topping up dirty grit.

• Plastic plant saucers: cheap, light, and easy to dump and refill weekly
• PVC gravity feeder: holds more, stays cleaner, takes 15 minutes to build
• Terracotta dishes: stable and attractive but heavy; best for permanent setups
• Jar lids for chicks: disposable and small enough that waste isn't a loss

How to Give Chickens Grit and Shell

Offer both free-choice from day one if chicks are eating anything other than crumbles. That includes treats, scratch, or pasture forage. A chick eating only commercial starter doesn't strictly need grit, but it won't hurt, and most keepers provide it anyway.

Fill one container with insoluble grit, another with shell. Place them where hens pass frequently: near water is common. Check weekly and top up when the level drops by half. Dump and refill monthly to clear debris and droppings.

Hens eating kitchen scraps, whole grains, or pasture grass need grit daily. A bird on pellets alone uses less but still benefits: pellets break down easier, but grit helps with fiber and gizzard health. Expect a hen to take 1-2 grams of grit per day and 2-3 grams of shell when actively laying.

Watch for hens ignoring the grit. That usually means the particle size is wrong: too large and they can't swallow it, too fine and it passes through. Adjust your crushing and sifting.

Starter Grit for Chicks

Say you've got two-week-old chicks on crumbles and a handful of chopped greens. They need grit, but adult-sized granite will choke them. Crush a separate batch to 1-2mm: about the size of coarse sand grains.

Commercially sold chick grit or starter grit is sized correctly and costs around $6 for a 5-pound bag. That lasts 25 chicks through 8 weeks, so making it yourself saves little unless you're raising large batches every few months.

Offer chick grit in a shallow dish from the day they get anything other than starter crumbles. They'll pick at it instinctively. Replace it every two days: brooder litter and droppings foul it fast.

What Not to Use as Grit

Picture a keeper filling a grit dish with playground sand or stall bedding pellets, thinking it'll save a trip to the store. A month later, hens are passing whole seeds and losing weight. The gizzard needs hard, sharp edges: sand rounds off too fast, and bedding just dissolves.

Sand works in a pinch if it's coarse builder's sand with angular particles, but it wears smooth within a few days and stops grinding. Fine sandbox sand is useless from the start. Hens take it because they're desperate, not because it helps.

Stall bedding pellets (wood or paper) break down into mush. They were suggested in old posts as emergency grit, but they provide zero grinding action. Skip them.

Crushed malt or spent brewing grain is feed, not grit. It's soft, breaks down fast, and doesn't survive the gizzard long enough to grind anything. Same for crushed corn or wheat: those are ingredients, not tools.

Stick to granite, flint, or other hard igneous or metamorphic rock. If you can scratch it deeply with a steel nail, it's too soft.

• Playground sand: rounds off in days, minimal grinding after the first week
• Stall bedding pellets: dissolve into pulp, zero grit function
• Crushed malt or grain: feed ingredient, not a grinding tool
• Soft decorative stone: wears smooth, won't hold an edge in the gizzard

Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Most homemade grit failures trace to sizing and stone choice. Here's what goes wrong and the fix for each.

• Using soft stone like limestone: Test with a nail scratch first. If it gouges easily, find harder rock: granite, basalt, or flint from a landscape yard.
• Crushing grit too coarse: Hens ignore pieces over 6mm. Sift through 1/4-inch hardware cloth and crush again until most pass through.
• Mixing grit and shell together: This prevents hens from self-regulating calcium. Always offer them in separate containers so each bird takes what it needs.
• Refilling without cleaning: Old grit collects droppings and wet debris. Dump containers monthly, scrub them, and refill with fresh material.
• Forgetting grit for kitchen scraps: Whole greens, corn, and melon need grinding. Add grit the same day you start giving treats, not after digestive trouble appears.
• Using fine sand as a substitute: Sand rounds off fast and offers poor grinding. If it's all you have, replace it within a week with proper granite grit.

Questions people still ask

I've been making grit from crushed granite for three years, and the $8 bag I bought in 2023 still has 10 pounds left: it's the easiest cost cut I've made for the flock.