recycling calcium and protein

[feltingfrenzy]

Greetings all,

I've read some of the previous posts and found the same question I had, but did not find the answer to it:

Does the calcium eventually break down when feeding the crushed egg shell back to the hens?

And, I had a problem with some tail-biting (plucking out the tail feathers on two of the 14 hens) and had the suggestion to give the flock several cooked eggs to supplement the animal protein. I've been doing that for two weeks and see an improvement so am guessing they needed more animal protein - not enough bugs. (Thanks to the poster that suggested that.) However, similarly to the recycled calcium question, does the protein break down when feeding the hens some of their cooked eggs?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

 

[Ridgerunner]

It’s not that the calcium breaks down. It gets used for things in addition to egg shells. They need some calcium for body maintenance. Also not all calcium they eat gets absorbed into their digestive. Some of it just passed through and out the other end.

Same type of thing with the protein.