Hopefully that will help the situation. BTW 1 Stop Ranch and Feed has really cheap oyster shell they bag up themselves. it's a big bag for just $1. Cheaper than anywhere else I've seen. I need to get back over there and stock up.
I feed the layer pellets but I always have a bowl of oyster shell free choice and they eat it so I figure they must need it.
I pay $7 for a 50 lb. bag at S&W in Carson City.
Quote: No problem Elizabeth. I'll be dropping them by in the morning. I'll just leave them on the porch if no one's home. I'll bring a couple of the big ones which you will need to trim the bottom leaves off of and plant them much deeper to try and save them and I'll bring a few of the 3" high ones as well. I hope they aren't past hope!
That is a good point about the oyster shell! I hadn't thought of that being the reason even though I knew I was not giving them enough. The marans eggs are so hard to hatch normally cause the egg shells are so hard that I had quit giving them oyster shell for a few weeks so the eggs would be easier to hatch. Sounds like I created this problem myself!OK they are getting oyster shell as we speak.
Sheryl IDK where you read that but it sounds like the kind of info that comes from the feed manufacturers. Layer was originally created for the large chicken farms to make feeding easier but a chicken that gets a variety of grains, greens, bugs, grit and oyster shell (or some other source of calcium) does not need layer feed and there are a bunch of studies that show the ill effects of too much calcium for non-layers (especially young birds). There are a lot of threads that cover this topic here on BYC and tempers have often gotten out of hand on these threads so I won't belabor the point further but you can do a search if you like to get both sides of the story. For the sake of peace I will leave it to these other folks to argue each side of this controversial subject and leave it off of this thread for now.
