Chickens require lots of calcium to produce strong and healthy eggs. Feeding egg shells to your flock is an easy and cost-effective way to provide them with this essential nutrient.
Some homesteaders choose to bake the shells before feeding them to their flock, which changes both odor and taste, making the feed unrecognizable to their flock.
Contents
Calcium
Calcium is essential to laying strong eggs, particularly during molting when energy must be directed toward replacing feathers that have been lost. Without enough calcium intake, egg shells become thin and crumbly resulting in disappointing eggs for your flock.
A hen needs approximately 2 grams of calcium to produce one egg. She gets this from her diet; if she doesn’t receive enough, her body will begin extracting calcium reserves from legs and ribs – potentially leading to skeletal issues and lameness.
If a commercial layer feed provides adequate nutrition, hens may not require additional calcium supplements. However, if they’re laying less eggs or their eggs are weaker, extra supplements could be beneficial – avi-calcium and calcium-rich grit may both work. Baked eggshells can also be fed free-choice but should not be mixed into their regular feed due to potential contamination from bacteria found within.
Vitamins
If a hen doesn’t consume enough calcium from her diet, she could begin producing thin shells on her eggs. Calcium alone won’t do; vitamin D3 and trace minerals also need to be present for strong shell formation. Hens that don’t get enough calcium take calcium out of their bones to use in making shells; this may lead to serious skeletal issues including lameness.
Commercial layer food contains all these micro-ingredients at an adequate level, along with limestone flour to guarantee a consistent supply of high quality eggs. Kitchen scraps and free range feeding may deplete laying hens of vital essential nutrients needed for production of eggs of high quality.
As soon as your baked eggshells have completely cooled down, be sure to crush them into small pieces for your flock’s use. Otherwise, any parts resembling eggs that could contain pathogens could end up getting eaten by chickens; to minimize risk and keep your flock safe it would be best if these pieces became powder and inedible to your flock.
Minerals
Hens rely on calcium in their bones to create thick eggshells that resist breaking, yet remain nearly unbreakable. Without enough calcium in their diets, their bones deplete rapidly resulting in poor laying performance and broken or shellless eggs laying performance. A deficiency can even result in poor performance at laying. When this calcium depletes too quickly it may result in problems walking or weak legs as hens use it from their bones for egg production instead.
Trace minerals (zinc, magnesium, copper manganese and zinc) play an essential role in bone and eggshell formation. A recent study demonstrated how supplementing commercial diets with an assortment of glycine-bound Zn, Mn and Cu improved both eggshell strength and quality significantly.
Crushing eggshells for feeding them back to chickens requires that you do so in such a way as not to resemble an actual egg, lest they become food sources that your chickens become familiar with and begin snacking on, leading them down an undesirable path which may become difficult to break later on.
Fiber
Many poultry keepers have strong opinions regarding feeding egg shells back to laying hens. Eggshells contain calcium carbonate which hens need in abundance in order to produce thick eggshells.
When hens lack calcium, their bodies will pull it from their bones – leading to fragile or crumbly eggshells. Feeding egg shells as food helps ensure they won’t get eaten up by the ground and is an easy and safe way to provide additional calcium supplementation for those hens who need extra.
Be careful when giving chickens extra calcium supplements; too much can lead to serious complications, including prolapsed vents and egg boundness. Grit and egg shells should be given free choice so roosters and non-laying pullets don’t end up eating too much of this supplement.
