That's the way I feed shells. Don't forget, if you eat clams, you can crush those shells, too. I don't know the calcium content of them, but they make nice grit for the birds. Chickens know when they have "enough" calcium ingested.
If you're incubating, you may want to keep she shell away...
You are absolutely right, they will drink that liquid just like water and will get the nutrition that comes with it.
Their bodies know what they need. They may not even go to the water trough, unless it's really hot. Try to keep their water cool, as if you were going to drink it.
Hey, CT, if you're going for weight, don't go high protein, they will get the protein they need and stop eating. If ypou look back a few posts, you'll see where this has been addressed in length. They also discussed milk fermentation. If I remember correctly, it wasn't recommended very...
Absolutely do!
Chicken wire USED to be a strong defense before manufacturers got so greedy and out-sourced the job to China, who further degraded it. Now they're doing the same thing with Hardware Cloth. It used to be galvanized, but now it's "zinc-plated". And it rusts, as does the "new"...