Store egg sticker shock, self healing eggs, dissapearing cracks.

[BigBlueHen53]

It surprises me that your dog feed is cheaper than chicken feed.

Lol, that's not what I meant to imply. Just that the dogs would help themselves to the chicken feed as a treat and would gulp down vast quantities of it, when it was in more open containers. I had to fix it so the dogs could not get at it.

ETA I was certainly not feeding chicken feed to the dogs on ourpose!

 

[Amer]

It doesn’t get very cold here and leaving (misplaced) eggs overnight with -5°C never caused cracked eggs. I can imagine harsher temps are a problem. In combination with rather soft shells they probably crack sooner.

I have two kinds of feed available for my mixed group. Chick crumble and layer pellets. I can’t buy organic feed for a mixed flock for a reasonable price in the Netherlands. And this seems to work just fine.
The oldies that haven’t laid an egg since last summer /autumn mainly eat the chicks crumble. My oldest prefers the wet chick crumble I make once a day.

The neighbour cats, who come to dinner uninvited, seem to prefer the wet chick crumble too.

I always have crushed oyster shells on the side and give crushed egg shells back. The young hens that lay, eat the egg shells as a treat.

Lol cracking has nothing to do with thin shells. When it gets cold enough here, they freeze every few hours! For us, -5 C isn't the low temps, it's the average!

(photo is from Google because I've never taken a picture of a frozen egg)