Your hens don’t need extra calcium until they are actually laying. A week or a month without having the extra calcium while laying is much better than having calcium while not laying. Don’t worry about calcium / laying feed until all your pullets are well into laying, 30+ weeks old, you can of course offer oyster shell free choice any time after 16-18 weeks.
For some reason people get hung up on giving laying feed to 18 week old pullets for calcium. If they don’t lay for weeks this is much worse for their bodies than if they didn’t have any supplemental calcium at all, even for weeks into laying eggs.
For some reason people get hung up on giving laying feed to 18 week old pullets for calcium. If they don’t lay for weeks this is much worse for their bodies than if they didn’t have any supplemental calcium at all, even for weeks into laying eggs.