Egg shells are full of easily absorbed calcium, but do I need to give my chickens calcium if their food already has calcium? Most chicken food, pellets or crumble, will not have enough calcium added to the food and chickens are pretty great at knowing what their bodies need. If offered calcium in a separate dish they will only eat it if they need it. They will need the calcium for egg production.
Do you NEED to feed your chickens egg shells? Yes and No. In order to lay eggs with a hard shell chickens need calcium. You can buy crushed oyster shells to give your chickens, but I prefer to give them shells because well it’s free and the chickens are more likely to eat it.
During the week we save our egg shells from the eggs that we eat in a bowl. You can rinse them off first but it is not necessary. Then when the bowl is full I dry them. There is a few different ways to do this.
You can bake them at 350 degrees for 5 minutes and then crush it up so it doesn’t resemble an egg anymore to prevent teaching the chickens from pecking their own eggs. You can also dehydrate at 120 for an hour or 2, until all the moisture from the inside of the shell is gone. Another option instead of baking them is to put them outside in the sun for a couple of hours on a hot day and it will dehydrate them.
When we give the chickens a choice of oyster shells or egg shells they go for the eggshells every time. And we have never had a problem with our chickens breaking their own eggs. That’s all it takes to get your chickens to have more calcium in their diet and they love it!!
