Warning - only vaguely gardening-related.

Just wondering - the Garden Bird Catalogue sells oyster shell grit for adding to bird mixes in spring supposedly to boost calcium levels when the birds are needing to produce eggs.

I've been making my own bird mixes this winter, and have been wondering if the same effect could be acheived with ground eggshell. I've been collecting (chicken) eggshells for a couple of months to experiment in springtime to see for myself once and for all if broken eggshells deter slugs (yes I know, I'm a saddo. It keeps me out of trouble though).

I put some (washed and dried) eggshells in my grinder and they produced an exceptionally fine powder.

Does anyone think this idea has merit? Would the birds be able to absorb the calcuim from the eggshell? Or is this a terrible idea which will lead only to a mad cow scenario of avian semi-cannibalism?

Any advice from your vast reserves of various brains much appreciated!

Thanks, Bob

On Mon, 13 Feb 2006 10:27:45 +0000, undergroundbob
wrote:


Warning - only vaguely gardening-related.

Just wondering - the Garden Bird Catalogue sells oyster shell grit for
adding to bird mixes in spring supposedly to boost calcium levels when
the birds are needing to produce eggs.

I've been making my own bird mixes this winter, and have been wondering
if the same effect could be acheived with ground eggshell. I've been
collecting (chicken) eggshells for a couple of months to experiment in
springtime to see for myself once and for all if broken eggshells deter
slugs (yes I know, I'm a saddo. It keeps me out of trouble though).

I put some (washed and dried) eggshells in my grinder and they produced
an exceptionally fine powder.

Does anyone think this idea has merit? Would the birds be able to
absorb the calcuim from the eggshell? Or is this a terrible idea which
will lead only to a mad cow scenario of avian semi-cannibalism?

Any advice from your vast reserves of various brains much appreciated!

Thanks, Bob

We occasionally mix crushed egshells into the stuf we feed wild birds
and indeed our own chickens for years

Bung them in the bottom of the ovem when theres cooking going on and
they crush down well

The message
from undergroundbob contains
these words:

I put some (washed and dried) eggshells in my grinder and they produced
an exceptionally fine powder.

Does anyone think this idea has merit?

I shouldn't think so. I don't, anyway.

Would the birds be able to
absorb the calcuim from the eggshell?

Yes, if they ingest it.

Or is this a terrible idea which
will lead only to a mad cow scenario of avian semi-cannibalism?

Birds often eat eggshell, snilshell, etc. Stick yo grit, they need it in
their crops for grinding the food - powder, if you can get it into them,
is only half the process, and in any case, hens need more of it than
cocks.

Any advice from your vast reserves of various brains much appreciated!


Just put chicken grit out, mixed with small bird grit. (Or if you have
wild moas about, opals are the thing...

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
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Hi,
We used to keep hens at home; bantams and some liberated battery hens.
The hens were laying soft shelled eggs, so we scattered broken egg
shells on the grass for them.
Unfortunately, a couple of them started to eat there own eggs. Asking
around, I was told that for grit, you shouldn't provide shells as it
makes them eat there own eggs.
True or not I don't know, but it was the consesus of advice I got.
Clifford
Bawtry
Doncaster

Janet,
thanks for that; it tallies with the impression I got that the birds
got the taste for eggs, that is why you didn't feed them shells.
..
I can see that seeing good pieces of shell will attract them but I
would have thought that some egg would remain on the shell and thus
carry over, even if you crushed the shell up.
..
When we went to the beach, we would spend ages collecting shells which
we would crush at home for the birds. You can get cockle shells as a
mulch these days which would do the same thing. Just a question of
cost - grit from the shop / cockle shell mulch or go to the beach. I
know my preference.
..
My brother has a few batams he is looking to offload, so will be fun to
get back to livestock.

Clifford
Bawtry, Doncaster, Soouth Yorkshire

On Wed, 15 Feb 2006 00:03:50 GMT, Janet Baraclough
wrote:

The message .com
from "cliff_the_gardener" contains
these words:

Hi,
We used to keep hens at home; bantams and some liberated battery hens.
(snip)

(Snip)You really need
to crush up the shells small into grit, either in a food processor, or
put them in a bag and roll with a rolling pin.

Janet

Can I just ask (having inherited some hens with the farm) whether the
hens need calcium in addition to the Jondo Flint Chick Grit we have
bought?

TIA

Joan in Ayrshire
remove 'spam' from email to reply

Joan Riley wrote:

Can I just ask (having inherited some hens with the farm) whether the
hens need calcium in addition to the Jondo Flint Chick Grit we have
bought?

Not idea what's in that particular brand, but hens need grit for their
digestive system (it helps grind up food in their crop) and calcium for
egg production. I've seen them sold both separately and together.

Ours get grit, though they probably don't need it that much as they're
fairly free-ranging (for the moment, anyhow) and oyster shell for the
calcium. When I'm using more than an egg or two at a time I also rinse
out the shells, bake a batch of them in the oven when it's on and crush
them in a plastic bag with a rolling pin until the pieces are no more
than a couple of millimetres across. The chickens then get given those
as well.

James

The hens we got were at end of lay; they were ex battery cage. The
eggs they layed to start with where either very thin shells or on
shells, just membrane. Once they were out side learning to scrat
around in the grass and pick things up they did some round. Thye did
have their grit and in our case you could see they needed it. Once
they started to lay their shells were irregular - heavy bands of shell
and where quite hard. It was good to see them recover, looked a good
bird, even if it was just a regular brown job.
Clifford
Bawtry, Doncaster, South Yorkshire

The message
from Joan Riley contains
these words:

Can I just ask (having inherited some hens with the farm) whether the
hens need calcium in addition to the Jondo Flint Chick Grit we have
bought?


Yes. But if they are free-range, i expect they'll find plenty of what
they need anyway.

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

On Wed, 15 Feb 2006 12:49:18 GMT, Janet Baraclough
wrote:

When gardening on heavy acid soil I often collected beach shell grit
for the veg garden. I still do, as a treat for clematis ( spread thick
round the stems, it provides lime and repels slugs). When I was a kid we
used to collect cuttle-fish "bones" from the beach for the budgie to
gnaw for minerals, but I hardly ever see cuttle fish bones on Scottish
beaches. I imagine hens would enjoy those too.


..
My brother has a few batams he is looking to offload, so will be fun to
get back to livestock.

Aaargh..be warned, there is no such thing as "a few" bantams. They
breed faster than rabbits. People who unwisely acquire some, are always
desperately looking for new homes.

Janet

Bantams are a scourge. Their egss are useless.
You need Black Rock or maran Hens

The message
from Dave the exTrailer contains these words:

Bantams are a scourge. Their egss are useless.
You need Black Rock or maran Hens


Bantams are dead useful.

Mine used to get me from Essex to somewhere near Brighton in less than
two hours.

But it was probably too old to lay eggs.

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
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On Fri, 17 Feb 2006 11:49:14 -0000, Rusty Hinge 2
wrote this (or the missive included
this):

Bantams are a scourge. Their egss are useless.
You need Black Rock or maran Hens


Bantams are dead useful.

and even more useful dead.


--
®óñ© © ² * ¹°°³

The message
from Janet Baraclough contains these words:

/bantam/

Mine used to get me from Essex to somewhere near Brighton in less than
two hours.

But it was probably too old to lay eggs.

nah, that was just typical. Bantams always conceal their eggs so
cleverly you know nothing about them until 16 new bantams appear and
start demanding fuel and a bigger shed to live in.


Guinea fowl are like that, but they're so stupid that they often all lay
in the same nest, and one silly bird sits on a mountain of fifty eggs or
more and hatches none of them.

You find the pile by stepping on it when the eggs are ripe.

--
Rusty
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The message
from Dave the exTrailer contains these words:

/bantam/

Mine used to get me from Essex to somewhere near Brighton in less than
two hours.

Ahhaaa your age is showing now.
I on the other had had an NSU Quickly

It was D1 Bantam, I'll have you know - no rear suspenson...

NSU Quickly was a good bike. One of my colleagues had one and it would
get to 60mph. I wouldn't turn one down now. The barrels were very
'before their time' being cast aluminium or magnesium alloy, with ground
and back-etched chromium plated bores. No iron liner.

--
Rusty
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The message
from Martin contains these words:

Ahhaaa your age is showing now.
I on the other had had an NSU Quickly

A contradiction terms. Foreign rubbish.

Show mw another 49cc machine which could get close to 60mph in the early '50s.

My Bantam got me from Chichester to Pembroke in one go and I have
never walked quite the same since.

Whatbroke?

Oh, your Pem.

--
Rusty
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