How to store egg shells to give your chickens

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

I just microwave on high for 30 seconds, crush, and they go out with the next “chicken bowl” run to the...err...run.

 

[Cutie Clucker]

Why do they need to be baked?

 

[Missythechickenlady]

Just put the eggs shells back in the carton or in an empty carton and put it in the fridge they dont get moldy.

 

[sylviethecochin]

I just toss them on the compost heap/garden (depends on time of year) and if the chickens want to eat them, they will. I don't even usually crush them.

I read that this is a bad idea because it will teach your chickens to eat eggs. I read this eight or nine years after we first got chickens. They'd been eating eggshells for a very long time. They did not break open their own eggs.

I don't think my flock has salmonella or botulism—I prefer my scrambled eggs on the rare side, and like to eat cookie-dough, so I think I would have noticed.

Egg white has some natural antibacterial properties. It is meant to keep bad stuff from getting to the embryo. I assume it can survive a few hours on the counter.

In short, there's no reason I can think of for me to keep a basket of eggshells. When I'm done with them, they go in the "junk bowl" (compostable food matter) and that gets emptied into the garden nearly daily.

 

[GC-Raptor]

I just put the cracked eggs shells on a paper plate for a day or two depending on humidity in my house.
Mid winter they dry in a day. .
Then I crush with my fingers and dump into a 5 cup pail. . No washing, baking, microwaving or blending to a powder.

As for flies, I hate flies. I have window screens, but if a fly sneaks in when I go in or out, I will pursue it with my fly zapper that looks like a tennis racket. GC

 

[blackdog043]

I put them on a paper plate and let them air dry for a day, then crush them up a little. About the same size as @GC-Raptor has on the plate. I don't rinse them or bake them.

 

[RebelChief]

I rinse mine, set them on a towel to air dry and throw them in a plastic dish until I have a couple dozen. The people that buy eggs from me bring their shells back as well. I usually pull out a hand full to use as seed starters. The rest I microwave for 45 seconds and them smash up and add to the oyster shell buck they have in the coop.

 

[Teresa D]

I just rinsed them out really well, let them dry and put them in a bowl on the counter until I had a cookie sheet load full for baking them.

Why do you have to bake them?

 

[de kippendame]

You don't HAVE to bake them, I've heard some people boil and others don't do either. The high temp from baking or boiling is done to try to kill any possible bacteria, or at least that's what I've been told.

I haven't saved shells in a while but if I were to again, I'd probably just rinse 'em out, let them dry and crush them.