Who recycles egg shells?

[terrilhb]

I do I feed them to my girls for extra calcium. They love them

 

[jktrahan]

Quote:
I also give as I use. Excess go into the compost bin. If i do store a few shells, i keep them in the egg caton with the regular eggs in the ice box, never had problems with odor that way.

 

[cluckin_crazy]

without reading the entire thread to see if someone already posted this, seems to me that storing raw shells anywhere for any period of time would invite bacteria in troves! my city water has enough calcium content that along with what they may get in their feed and foraging, i dont really NEED to give the girls extra calcium. but sometimes as a treat, i will nuke the shells and give them back. without rinsing, so they get some egg white on there still.

 

[kla37]

ziploc bags in the freezer!

 

[cochicks]

I rinse egg shells, crunch them a little, and throw them into the run.

 

[jomoncon]

When crushing the shells, how small do you make them? I just started feeding the eggshells back to the girls & was wondering how small is small enough. I've been crushing them so that the biggest pieces are about 1/4" in diameter. Is that small enough?

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Quote:
Plenty small enough.

 

[meekasmom]

My girls eat the shells like candy! I have never baked them. I only keep them a couple of days till they are dry and crush them and feed. No problems.

 

[Carolyn]

I drop them in a jar of water to rinse them and use the water for plants. I either crush them and add to compost bucket or if I have several or they are not going to the hens for a while, I microwave a few seconds and store in a plastic bag. When I have a nice collection the person with the most stress gets to break them up by hand.....kinda like popping the bubbles on bubble wrap.

I have forgotten to crush them at all and have never suffered ill effects. With my first group of chickens I dried and crushed them faithfully. This was the only group who were egg eaters!! That was because they were confined to the house and run. They were also feather pickers. Since then I have made sure they have plenty of roaming space with areas to scratch around in. Personally I doubt seriously that feeding them egg shells causes egg eaters any more than feeding them lettuce would make them eat garden lettuce....they do what they do!