My hens just started laying when should I start offering oyster shell and can I feed them the egg shells to help?
You can offer them oyster shell on the side anytime. If you are feeding them Layer, it is supposed to be a complete food so you don't need to (unless you are giving them a lot of treats or other food) but it doesn't hurt to have it available to them. You can feed them their own egg shells, people usually crush them up and/or mix/bake them in something so they don't look like egg shells... you don't want to give the chickens the idea that they can eat eggs.
Thanks that makes sense to crush them up I'm feeding them dumar layer crumble and maybe once a week apples from our apple tree
I've never bothered with crushing up egg shells, and have never had problems with hens eating eggs. that weren't already broken. We just toss the shells out in the yard, and usually they are gone in just a few minutes. Why create extra work for yourself?
I have oyster shell for my hens to eat but they do not seem to be very fond of it. I did save egg shells at one point to take out to them but it did seem like a lot of extra work.
Quote: They only eat it if they need it, so if they are getting enough Calcium from other sources they will ignore it. If you have problems with thin shells and they still aren't eating it, try mixing it with their normal feeds
