Egg Shells For Calcium?

[mrl8810]

I have some hens who've been eating eggs out of one of their nest and i noticed yesterday that there was a soft-shelled egg and found out that it was probably low calcium...with the way everything is right now i can't get oyster shells so I baked about 5 eggshells today and crushed them up to crumbles and put them in a dish and sat them in the coop...about 2-3 minutes later they were all gone. I've read before that chickens know how much they need and won't take more than they need..so does this mean that they need that much more calcium? Is the eggshells just a treat that taste good or is it the calcium that they need?

Thanks for any help.

I feed them cracked corn...layer...occassionally some grass, worms, veggies etc

 

[zweibucherwurm]

I always dry/bake my eggshells, crush them, and give them to the chickens. I mix them in with the "chicken bowl" to compost/treat them. If I forget I will sometimes find a soft shelled egg, but that reminds me to get those eggshells out there and they harden again quickly (within a day or two). I've never used anything but eggshells. Does that help?

 

[aart]

More of the story here:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/soft-egg.1360597/#post-22437944