I need Suggestions for Alternatives to Oytser Shell Please

[chuckzoo]

My sister is in South Africa and can't find a source for Oyster Shell. What alternatives can she feed that she can put in a free feed cup?

 

[grandmaof5]

Egg shell? Dry them in a slow oven, than crush with a rolling pin.

 

[zazouse]

I feed all my egg shells to my chickens,and no matter how many i throw out there are never any left at the end of the day and i don't prosess them at all, but i do have over 300 chickens

 

[chuckzoo]

Yes she is already feeding the egg shell but she doesn't have enough shells to supply 15 hens because she only has the shells of the egg she eats herself, she sells the rest.

Could she crush human calcuim tablets and feed that? How much would it take? Can this form of calcuim be absorbed by chickens?

 

[Chris09]

Calcium Phosphate or Feed Grade Limestone.

Chris

 

[flockof4]

Yogurt is a great source of calcium. I'm not sure how much it has compared to oyster shell, but it's an option.

 

[chuckzoo]

Thanks! She has been giving them yogurt once a week.

 

[Imp]

Here are some other sources of calcium.

Imp

Dairy foods
Milk, yogurt, cheese

Leafy green vegetables
Broccoli, kale, spinach

Fruits
Oranges

Beans and peas
Tofu, peanuts, peas, black beans, baked beans

Fish
Salmon, sardines

Miscellaneous
Sesame seeds, blackstrap molasses, corn tortillas, almonds, brown sugar

 

[HEChicken]

I use egg shells but have a similar issue in that because I sell more eggs than I use, I can only recycle a fraction of the egg shells. It would not be enough if they were not eating layer feed. While I had them on Flock Raiser, they were going through a lot of shell but once I switched to the layer formula, the shell consumption decreased markedly. Now it seems that even recycling only a small number of the eggs they lay is enough. So the first thing I would suggest for your sister is that she feed them a layer formula that already has calcium in it, then recycle what egg shells she does have and last, ask her friends/neighbors/family/customers to save their egg shells for her so that she can recycle them.

 

[RavenStorm]

We don't buy any oyster shells here for my flock. We do the feed the egg shells thing, but we also eat a lot of seafood. Anything with a shell: shrimp, crabs, lobster, clams, etc., we try not to flavor/season until after the good stuff is out of the shell. Then we take those shells and boil them to leach out the majority of the salt. Then we dry them out in a low temp oven. We smash up the crab/shrimp/lobster shells and further grind them with a coffee grinder, and the harder shells like clams we take out to the chicken pen and smash on the floor with rocks until they are an edible size. Eggs are as hard as a rock around here.