Calcium Citrate Question

[SpaceLamb]

One of our girls lays soft-shelled eggs pretty consistently. They’re on layer feed and have access to oyster shell 24/7. We read that giving a calcium citrate + D3 supplement for three days can help kind’ve jumpstart their system so we tried that and the shells on the eggs she laid improved significantly but a few days after we stopped giving the supplement she went back to laying soft eggs.

Is calcium citrate something we can give everyday for an indeterminate amount of time or would that hurt her in some way?

 

[azygous]

To do any damage to organs, calcium citrate would need to be give in large doses over many months. I consider "short term" to be up to two months, but I've never had to do it for that long.

The rule of thumb is to give up to one tablet per day until the problem eggs are consistently normal quality again. When I see a nice shell on the eggs with the appearance of slight amount of calcium deposits, I halt the calcium at that point.

The hen in my flock who had to be on calcium therapy the longest, perhaps a month or so, now has normal, smooth egg shells. She was a double egg layer (eggs not just yolks) for much of last season, and the shells were a mess. She's wonderful testament to calcium citrate therapy and to how well it works.

 

[SpaceLamb]

To do any damage to organs, calcium citrate would need to be give in large doses over many months. I consider "short term" to be up to two months, but I've never had to do it for that long.

The rule of thumb is to give up to one tablet per day until the problem eggs are consistently normal quality again. When I see a nice shell on the eggs with the appearance of slight amount of calcium deposits, I halt the calcium at that point.

The hen in my flock who had to be on calcium therapy the longest, perhaps a month or so, now has normal, smooth egg shells. She was a double egg layer (eggs not just yolks) for much of last season, and the shells were a mess. She's wonderful testament to calcium citrate therapy and to how well it works.

Awesome thank you so much. Like I said we did see improvement when she was on the calcium citrate but it seemed to go away as soon as we stopped supplementing. We'll continue again for a little longer and see how she does.

 

[Chikenshiken]

To do any damage to organs, calcium citrate would need to be give in large doses over many months. I consider "short term" to be up to two months, but I've never had to do it for that long.

The rule of thumb is to give up to one tablet per day until the problem eggs are consistently normal quality again. When I see a nice shell on the eggs with the appearance of slight amount of calcium deposits, I halt the calcium at that point.

The hen in my flock who had to be on calcium therapy the longest, perhaps a month or so, now has normal, smooth egg shells. She was a double egg layer (eggs not just yolks) for much of last season, and the shells were a mess. She's wonderful testament to calcium citrate therapy and to how well it works.

If one tablet is for a full sized chicken should half a tablet be good for a bantam who’s around 4 pounds? I know this post is quite old but I’m having trouble finding dosage for bantams who need calcium citrate

 

[azygous]

One whole calcium tablet is safe for all sizes. Over dose would need to take place over weeks and weeks to do any damage to kidneys.

 

[aftica86]

To do any damage to organs, calcium citrate would need to be give in large doses over many months. I consider "short term" to be up to two months, but I've never had to do it for that long.

The rule of thumb is to give up to one tablet per day until the problem eggs are consistently normal quality again. When I see a nice shell on the eggs with the appearance of slight amount of calcium deposits, I halt the calcium at that point.

The hen in my flock who had to be on calcium therapy the longest, perhaps a month or so, now has normal, smooth egg shells. She was a double egg layer (eggs not just yolks) for much of last season, and the shells were a mess. She's wonderful testament to calcium citrate therapy and to how well it works.

Hi do you mind me asking the dosage of cal/vitD you were using. I’m in Canada and we can only
buy 300mg/200IUD3 She has been on it for 3wks
now and I’m not seeing any improvement
I noticed some comments about higher dosages
so I have been giving her a bit more I have to cut them up and slip them into blueberries and she gobbles them up.. Are they able to recover from this how much longer would you recommend giving it her ?

Thanks for any words of wisdom you can pass along

 

[azygous]

Hi do you mind me asking the dosage of cal/vitD you were using. I’m in Canada and we can only
buy 300mg/200IUD3 She has been on it for 3wks
now and I’m not seeing any improvement
I noticed some comments about higher dosages
so I have been giving her a bit more I have to cut them up and slip them into blueberries and she gobbles them up.. Are they able to recover from this how much longer would you recommend giving it her ?

Thanks for any words of wisdom you can pass along

You should double the dosage to 600mg. If this is going to solve your hen's issues, it will occur fairly quickly. If it fails to make a difference, then you would suspect a serious underlying health issue such as disease, many of which can affect egg quality and laying issues.

 

[TLM72]

One whole calcium tablet is safe for all sizes. Over dose would need to take place over weeks and weeks to do any damage to kidneys.

I’m looking for calcium with d3 right now, but most brands have some form of magnesium in them, listed under “other ingredients”. Any recommendations on what is acceptable and what’s not? What brands? I’m looking on Amazon.

 

[azygous]

What country are you in? In the US, Walmart is a convenient place to buy people vitamins. This is what I buy from Walmart.

 

[TLM72]

I’m in the US, I’m just 90 minutes from Walmart. I looked at ingredients in the Equate brand, it’s the same in terms of magnesium stearate being listed, as the one I’m looking at on Amazon, so I’ll go ahead and order. Thank you!