Poll: Have you ever fed egg shells and THEN had an egg-eater?

[ChickensAreSweet]

I would love to know if people's fear of inducing egg-eating through feeding egg shells is valid.

Has it ever happened to you? Everything is fine, and then you get egg-eating problems after you start feeding them their egg shells (CRUSHED) back to them?

 

[Beekissed]

I've always fed shells and broken eggs, shells included, to my flocks and have never had what one would call an egg eater. If an egg breaks in the nest, of course my gals will clean it up. But I've never had a chicken eat intact, or even merely cracked, eggs in a nest.

 

[FireTigeris]

no problems here I dry out and crush up the egg shells tho-

 

[ranchhand]

No, I've been raising chickens for over 18 years and have never had an egg eater. I did have a moment of panic this week, because I saw an egg and then it was gone. It was laid on the ground, bad enough, but they had buried it.

I don't bake the shells or anything fancy, I just crush them with other scraps and pitch them out there.

Now I'm going to knock on wood!

 

[TigerLilly]

Quote:
That's also how I do it.

 

[Fred's Hens]

By the time I am done "re-cycling" a cracked egg, they don't recognize it as an "egg", but as table food.
Shells. Dried, by air or warm oven and crushed into bits. It is but tiny chips in their layer pellets. No recognition.

 

[lorihadams]

I crush mine now....I fed them in halves and had an egg eater and had to get rid of her *wink wink*. She just wouldn't stop and I was afraid the others would start eating eggs too. I usually hide mine in oatmeal. No problems since.

 

[chicnfarmer]

Quote:
x2

 

[matimeo]

The unscientific part of this poll is that even for those who have fed shells to their chickens and then had an egg eater, it doesn't mean there is a positive correlation between the two. They may have eaten the eggs for other reasons. However, the fact that most people do feed their chickens shells, and most chickens don't eat eggs is probably a decent clue that feeding them shells is harmless.

 

[KellyHM]

I don't feed eggshells, but if an egg is super dirty/gross I will crack it and just throw it on the ground. The chickens devour it, but I've never had a problem with them touching an egg that isn't cracked.