You might be thinking feeding eggshells to your chickens is weird… but it’s actually an economic way to help keep your chickens healthy and produce more eggs. Now, this doesn’t mean feed shells from eggs you buy at the store or feed them egg shells from another flock. You don’t want to accidentally introduce new bacteria to your flock that might make them sick, but feeding them back their own egg shells is a safe and viable way to supplement their feed. If you think about it, they laid the egg, they live together, so there is no new bacteria being introduced.
To bake or not to bake? This is where my research sent me in different directions. It’s a mixed review on this one. I bake my eggshells at 350 degrees for 5-10 minutes just to kill off any bacteria that might harm my chickens. But there are also people who just let the eggshells dry on the counter and then feed them without baking and have no issues. In theory, there shouldn’t be any new bacteria feeding the chickens their own egg shells. I will say, doing it both ways, the eggs shells are much easier to crush by hand after tossing in them in the oven for a few minutes.
To crush or not to crush? The idea behind crushing the egg shells before feeding them to your hens is that you don’t want them to associate this treat with eating their eggs. You don’t want a hen to correlate that there are more treats in the egg box. Crushing the eggs just takes away any future temptation, and makes it easier for the hens to eat.
What are the benefits? Adding crushed eggs to your flocks diet adds a boost a calcium which results in stronger egg shells. You’ll see pictures all over the internet of weird see-through jelly-like eggs, or eggs in funny shapes. This is usually due to lack of calcium. A lot of chicken tenders supplement in the form of oyster shells, and I do keep some on hand and give my chickens access to oysters shells at all times, but they actually prefer the egg shells.
I have a bowl that just sits on our counter and I simply toss the egg shell in it after cracking the egg. In a few days, I have a full bowl of shells, toss them in the oven for a couple minutes, allow the shells to cool, crush then feed to my hens. Super simple, doesn’t cost me anything, and doesn’t take much time.
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