You’ve picked up your first chicks, raised them in a brooder, and they’re ready to go outside. But now they’re about to start laying eggs and you need to make sure they get enough calcium. At what age can pullets start eating eggshells?
Pullets (young female chickens under one year of age) need extra calcium in their diet starting when they begin laying eggs. Once pullets start laying eggs, you can feed their eggshells back to them as an extra source of calcium. If the pullet is laying eggs, it is safe to feed eggshells back to the hens.
Eggshells are a great natural source of calcium for your laying chickens but there are some misconceptions about when and how to feed them to your chickens, especially if you have a flock of mixed ages or mixed animals.
Eggshells are a Great Source of Calcium for Laying Hens
It may seem kind of weird to feed eggshells back to your hens. Aren’t they making them in the first place? That’s exactly true – and the calcium that they use to make the eggshell in the first place can be re-absorbed by eating them so that she can make more eggshells! It’s a wonderful way to make your chicken flock more sustainable and self-sufficient by not needing to add in as many external sources of calcium.
Feeding eggshells to laying hens is a great best practice that any chicken owner can do. You don’t need to do anything fancy to them if you don’t want to. Crack them and set them aside to feed later or crumble them up – it’s up to you. Feeding eggshells doesn’t need to be a fancy process that adds a bunch of extra time to your daily chores.
Don’t let “chicken gurus” deter you from feeding eggshells to your hens by giving you a laundry list of steps to complete before it’s safe to feed them out. I’ve been raising chickens for years and don’t do anything to the eggshells after cracking them open for myself like normal, and I’ve never had an egg eater (that’s a topic for another post though).
Chickens need calcium in order to produce their eggs. Eggshells are mostly made of calcium and any calcium deficiencies can be easily spotted by having regular soft-shelled eggs. If your eggs aren’t sturdy and hard, then you may have a calcium deficiency in your flock. Feeding eggshells to your chickens is a great all-natural and free way to add some much-needed calcium to their diets, although you may still need to supplement with oyster shells if your chickens are particularly deficient.
All hens can benefit from being fed back their eggshells. Even if you’re using them in compost, consider splitting the eggshells between the compost pile and going back to the hens as an extra boost for them. It will make a big difference long-term in the ability of your hens to lay healthy, strong-shelled eggs for you!
Only hens that are of laying age need eggshells added to their diets. If you have young pullets (hens) who haven’t yet started laying eggs, you don’t need to feed them your grocery store eggs. Only hens that have started laying need the extra calcium in their diets.
Feeding eggshells to a flock of only pullets could result in long-term health problems in their bodies and joints. For example, gout is a common result of excess calcium in a chicken’s diet – usually found only in roosters but can also occur if young hens who haven’t started laying are fed excessive amounts of calcium.
Can I Feed Eggshells if I Have a Rooster?
You can absolutely feed eggshells to your hens if you have a rooster. Roosters do need some calcium in their diets and they will not over-indulge on eggshells unless you’re feeding an excessive amount of eggshells and not enough of their regular feed. If you are only feeding the eggshells that your hens create, you won’t find any issues with excess calcium for a rooster as long as he’s getting a balanced diet.
Roosters can get gout by eating too much layer pellet (which has added calcium) in addition to excess supplemented calcium. But as long as your chickens are able to have a balanced diet and you don’t feed excessive amounts of eggshells or oyster shells to your flock, they should be fine.
Flocks that forage will have even fewer issues with excess calcium in roosters because they will be able to balance their nutrition out themselves as they forage through other plants, insects, worms, and microscopic fungi and bacteria found in soil.
Feeding Eggshells in a Flock of Mixed Age Chickens
If you have a flock of laying hens and add some young pullets into it who haven’t started laying yet, you can definitely still feed them eggshells. With the older and more dominant hens there, the pullets will not be able to eat too many eggshells. The older hens will get to the eggshells first and not let the pullets have any until they’ve had their fill. With the laying hens eating most of the eggshells, there shouldn’t be enough left over for the pullets to have too much.
With all of this advice, make sure all of the hens have plenty of feed. If they aren’t getting enough of their regular feed, they could resort to eating habits that are unhealthy as they try to get nutrients in any way they can. If you’re only feeding the flock eggshells that they laid themselves, there should be no issues from excess calcium regardless of who eats them – even the pullets who haven’t started laying yet.
It all comes down to a balanced diet. If you are providing a quality layer pellet to your chickens and especially if you’re also giving them opportunities to forage, any additional treats or foods you supplement in small amounts will not cause any harm from excess consumption. Of course, if something is known to be poisonous to chickens like spinach, you should not give it to them yourself regardless of how much.
Feeding Eggshells to Chickens in a Mixed Species Flock
A mixed flock is when you have different types of birds living together. This could be ducks, geese, guineas, turkeys, or any other kind of bird that lives with your chickens. There are pros and cons to having a mixed flock, but we are going to focus only on eating eggshells to these animals, nothing else.
It is safe to feed eggshells to a mixed flock as long as you have animals that are producing eggs. All eggshells are made up mostly of calcium so all laying birds will need that extra calcium in their diet to keep making strong-shelled eggs. You should only feed eggshells back to the flock that they produce themselves unless you are seeing lots of very weak-shelled eggs coming from the girls. Males will not eat a lot of the eggshells and females benefit from the extra calcium.
Eggshells in Your Garden or Fed to Chickens
Eggshells are great in your garden and mixed into your compost but they are also great to be fed back to your laying hens to make sure they’re getting appropriate amounts of calcium. So how do you decide what to do with your eggshells if you want the benefits of both?
If you are feeding your hens a layer pellet, you don’t have to feed them their eggshells. They would enjoy the extra treat and calcium but it’s not necessary if they’re already getting a source of calcium from their feed. Supplementing with oyster shell is also a good way to make sure the hens can get extra calcium if they need it.
You can always use the eggshells in your garden and in your compost without feeding any to your chickens. A good practice, though, is to alternate what you do with them. Sometimes put them in your compost and in your garden and other times, throw the eggshells to your hens. Occasionally supplementing your hens with eggshells but not doing it regularly won’t hurt them or cause them to have upset stomachs like can happen with other animals. As long as they’re fed a layer pellet or provided other sources of calcium, you can throw them some eggshells occasionally or whenever you have excess that you can’t use in the garden with no issues.
Overfeeding Eggshells
Overfeeding eggshells is only an issue in two scenarios. Feeding eggshells to a flock of only pullets who aren’t laying or feeding eggshells from multiple sources (not just your own flock) could cause issues with excess calcium and gout.
When you’re feeding eggshells to your flock, it’s best practice to only feed them the eggshells that they’re producing. Adding in extra eggshells that you get from other sources like store-bought eggs or other chicken keepers could result in excess calcium in your hens’ diets, particularly if they are already eating a layer pellet that has balanced nutrition and calcium for a laying hen.
Unless you’re having issues with soft-shelled eggs in your flock, there is no need to seek out additional eggshells, although adding in some extras once in a while won’t cause harm.
You should never add eggshells to a pullet’s diet who hasn’t started laying and who isn’t living with laying hens. A young hen who hasn’t started laying will eat eggshells if given the choice and with no competition from older hens, but she doesn’t need it.
Excess calcium in a pullet could cause issues with bone development and cause gout and joint issues later in life. Pullets should be eating a grower feed and not be given extra calcium sources or a layer pellet until they start laying eggs.
