Feeding eggs shells... Do they acquire a taste for eggs?

[mamabigbird]

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Yup! I agree.

 

[maizey]

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trial and error, gut feeling and common sense. I don't feel real comfortable feeding eggshell regardless of what the consensus is about egg eating..so I don't. Just seems...wrong, even if its perfectly safe, Id rather buy oyster shell. Don't like the idea of giving them egg or leftover chicken even though its a healthy, high protein treat that they love and would never do them any harm... I want to enjoy them, not get the heebiejeebies from them. As long as you provide what they need and they are in good health, the rest is optional gravy.

 

[dsqard]

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Well said! Take the advice you want and leave the rest.

 

[TigerLilly]

I have been feeding my chickens eggshells since I started (all of 6 months ago) & have not had the first one become an egg-eater.

I learned most all I need to know about my chickens
1. from reading this forum & listening to those with the experience;
2. watching & interacting with my chickens.
Some of it is learning by trial & error; the rest is weeding out the differing advice.
It's mostly just fun learning it all.

 

[MaureenL128]

I agree. I will hard boil my eggs and then when i am ready to use them, I save the peeled shells for the girls. They love them! Never had a problem eating their eggs before I can get to them.

 

[Mrs. K]

I don't give mine a lot of egg shells, but they find them in the compost pile, and once I threw the compost bucket into the run, (thinking that hand had the chicken feed) and they ate them up qucik, I have oyster shell 24/7 but they much prefer the eggs shells.

I put a few in every now and then. mrsk

 

[flowerchild59]

I crush them up pretty good and give them with the food scraps from the kitchen. It isn't really a big deal.
I save up my broken eggs when I gather them and keep them in the fridge. ( I have about 30 hens so am picking up a dozen and a half this time of year) . I wait til I have a dozen and on mornings when I make a smoothie and my blender is dirty any way, I whirl my whole eggs in the blender with a little water and sometimes I add veggies to the mix too. Then I make a big omelette for the girls. The shells are pulverized when they are blended. I cool off the eggs and feed it back to them. They go nuts for it.
If I don't feel like cooking the eggs scrambled, I hard boil them and feed it to them.

 

[CopperCT]

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X2.... I feed our eggshells to our chickens regularly and give them back scrambled eggs when we have too many....none of our chickens are egg eaters. They lay their eggs and get on with business.

 

[NYREDS]

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THAT is the nature of an open forum such as this. You will just have to take it all in and try what you want. YOU will come to your own conclusions by trial and error.
I see this forum as similiar to sitting in the coffee shop and talking to a group of friends and getting everyone's storys and advise.

I'll give you my opinion which comes from 50 years of keeping chickens. Chickens do not have the intellectual capacity to connect crushed eggs shells to the eggs they lay. I have always fed eggs shells back to the chickens & can't remember having more than a couple of egg eaters in all the years I've kept birds. I even feed them boiled eggs when I have an excess. I boil the eggs & cuuse them with a potato masher, shell & all.