National oyster shell shortage?

[DianeB]

Thank you again,
I was able to get some on Amazon.

 

[amateur_peasant]

Wow, glad I stocked up last month! But at a quick glance, all my usual haunts seem to have all my preferred products on hand - Tractor Supply, Walmart, chewy. In a pinch, I bet you could use calcium supplements meant for parrots, other household birds.

The pet/feed store guy mentioned this nationwide oyster shell shortage just yesterday. I'm going to look for some appropriately crushed limestone - probably the stuff intended for gardening would work.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

Bought a 50 lb bag today at local TSC...had several in stock (and “in stock” isn’t exactly what TSC is known for around here).

Paid $12.49 plus tax.

 

[Sally PB]

@azygous, the calcium citrate you suggest for helping an eggbound hen... could that be used as a stand in for OS? Crushed up, on the side? I mean for a possible long term solution, if OS became unavailable for a month or two.

 

[Ursuline Chick]

You can always come to South Louisiana, have some fun and take all the oyster shells you want back with you. (you would have to crush them )

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

You can always come to South Louisiana, have some fun and take all the oyster shells you want back with you. (you would have to crush them )

I live in Rhode Island ("the Ocean state") and there are lots of shells. When I'm paying less than $13 for a 50 lb bag, it's not worth crushing myself...but if there was ever a shortage and OS became unavailable...it'd be a real option for chicken farmers in coastal areas to harvest their own calcium!

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Tip of the iceberg here, combination of factors. Good news is that some of those factors should be easing up.

FL's oysters (technically, Gulf oysters) have been hit by a series of hurricanes, year after year, particularly around Mobile. FL is also claiming that GA has been taking too much water out of the watershed feeding the Apalachicola Bay, altering water salinity and other factors leading to the collapse of the oyster population. FL lost the suit (last week), so that's not changing, and oyster harvest from the Gulf, State by State, are either limited or banned while the population recovers. That's going to take a while, but its a supply constraint.

Up the East Coast, the more northern States (trying to avoid politics here) largely shut down their restaurants. No huge numbers of oysters consumed in food service, no huge numbers of oyster shells. Local Oyster Preservation groups have been begging for help for months now - even if oysters aren't being harvested, there's no "new" old shells going into the waters for the next generation of oysters.

Shell Recycling Alliance
Maryland Recycling
Chesapeake Bay Foundation

etc etc etc.

Which also means no large commercial shucking operations selling shell for other uses.

and with people stuck at home, and home prices skyrocketing, people are beautifying their homes - with things like crushed oyster shell walks and driveways, driving up demand.

SO, it should improve, but there may be some **regional** scarcity in the here and now.

 

[azygous]

@Sally PB , no, calcium citrate supplements are way too concentrated for long term use. It's strictly for emergency interventions for when eggs are coming out poor shell quality or there's a possible egg stuck. It's usually not needed for more than one week. The longest I needed to have a hen on it was around two weeks. The hen was laying two eggs in a 25 hour cycle, and it took that long for the citrate to remedy her problem. As it was, her shells came out heavily covered with calcium blisters for a few months afterward. That's the sign that the calcium citate needs to be stopped.

Oyster shell is still the very best supplement for all laying hens. The thing to look out for when filling your oyster shell dispensers is that it has consistently large particles, not powdery residue. The reason is that for the calcium carbonate to be absorbed properly, it needs to remain in the hen's digestive tract as long as possible, and large particles last while the powdery stuff runs right through a hen, doing little to no good.

 

[Sally PB]

Thanks for the information.

 

[Ursuline Chick]

We have lots of empty oyster shells and you don't have to buy them. They are there for the taking.