Feeding Eggshells

An old farmer friend of mine told me to lightly toast the eggshells before feeding, I dont know why, but he said him grandma and mom used to. So I guess I will. Does anyone else do this and do you know why?

Its calcium. They need the calcium to make the shell. Just make sure you crunch it up real good so they can't recognize the egg. You don' want them to start eating their own eggs. Its a good thing . I feed mine boiled eggs every now & again the egg has lots of protein. I just crush it up real good.

The thought was that if you toasted the shell before you gave them to the chickens, is that the chickens wouldn't think that they could eat fresh laid eggs. I don't think it matters one way or another. If a chicken is going to eat fresh eggs, the bird will do it no matter what. I give my flock raw shells that I crush up. It seems to help with the quality of the freshly laid eggs.

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yes, all that. we feed ours to them. MAKE SURE YOU CRUSH THEM REALLY WELL! otherwise they will get into egg eating habbit...

Thank you, I will not be wasting time if I do not have to. I have some egg shells now ror them and will just crush thema nd add them to the food.

I throw the weak shelled or odd eggs back down to my chickens right in the coop or outside in front of their coop.
It is an old wives tale that it will get them in the habit of eating their own eggs. That just isn't true.
I throw the whole egg down and it breaks on the ground in front of them, they run up and eat it.
I have had chickens for many years and out of the 500 plus I have now (I am currently down a few hundred), no one eats eggs unless they have low protein problems.
I have never, ever had a chicken eat their eggs because of low calcium but I always make sure they have oyster shell. They may need more protein and bust an egg for that or if they see a cracked one they will get rid of it as it is their instinct to get rid of it before it draws a predator.
I can lay eggs on the ground and they all run over to it and then look up at me to bust it for them. If I tap it they do too but they never bust it.
I never heat the darn things either. Waste of time. They can eat their own shell fresh or old. I bust the undeveloped ones from my bator and they eat those shells, too. No one has been sick from it.
Just my many years of experience with chickens and eggs.

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My guess its probably a way to enshure there dry and sterile.The heat would destroy any spoilage ,bacteria,etc...cva34

One of my hens had a broken egg come out on the spot. A while later, she picked the soft shell off the ground and gobbled it! You should crush the egg shells.

Unless I give them the eggshell immediately, I always lightly bake them. The reason is that I usually don't mess with eggshells until I have a bunch, so I will use eggs throughout the week and put the empty shells back into the fridge. Then I bake them all together at the end of the week. I bake because they aren't fresh and baking kills any bacteria that has grown on them in the interim.

I collect them for about a week then microwave them crush up fine put in a bowl next to their feeder they eat what they want .