Well I started feeding my chickens and ducks oyster shell a couple days ago...and ever since I keep having to constantly refill it. Is this normal?
I am no expert, but I think if they eat it, they need it. Mine basically turned their beaks up to it, I still throw a little down once a week or so. Hope someone else can help you better. You might want to add if they free range or not and other details.
They won't eat the oyster shell unless they need it. They can store calcium in their bones for use, and they might have depleted those stores, it takes about 2 weeks to build up the stores again. If this is the case then you should see a drop off in oyster shell eating in about 2 weeks. I think it is a good idea to have it available at all times, even if they are on layer food (calcium fortified) for this reason. Some just need a little more.
Mine ate tons of it at first, and now just a tiny bit as needed. (They're been laying for about 6 weeks now). I also noticed they were really messy with it, spilling it until I found a container for it that I could wire to the fencing of the run near the food.
Ok...guess Ill keep refilling it. Ive got them on the gamebird feed (mixed flock) so that may be one reason they are going through it so much also.
