Preparing Egg Shells For The Chickens

Hens need a calcium rich diet in order to lay eggs with strong shells. 

We provide our hens with oyster shells along with their own shells to boost their calcium.

The hens LOVE the shells and contrary to what some say, it has not turned our hens into "egg eaters".

There are many different ways to prepare the egg shells, this is the method we use.

We rinse the shells with plain warm water and place them on a layer of paper towel to dry.

Drying the shells makes them easier to crush.

We lay them cracked side down for a couple hours. 

Then we turn the shells over and allow them to finish drying. 

Once the shells are dry, we place them in a storage bag, a few at a time.

Next, we crush the shells by hand. We crush ours fairly small.

We just continue adding and crushing shells.

And that's it! All done and ready for the hens.