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What to do with all those eggshells???

 
Larry Jackson
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Some time ago I was interested in the idea of farming worms for the garden, (and fishing). I read that the washed eggshells may be ground into a fine grit like fine cornmeal as an amendment to feed for the worms to aid in their digestion and calcium. This adds to calcium for the garden, but I do not yet know if it has changed the PH much of my garden soil. I have many worms in my garden now from composting, so I generally just keep adding them when I empty the scrap bag into the compost pile about every 4 or 5 days.

What do you do with your leftover eggshells?
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Mike Haasl
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I spread them liberally around tomato plants and apple trees.  I've heard it's good for the apples and the blossom end rot is substantially reduced on years when I use it on tomatoes.  At least in my experience...

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Stacy Witscher
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I spread them everywhere. The local birds come and eat many of them, but that's fine with me. Wild birds need calcium too. Right now, it's mostly wild turkeys that are devouring them.

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Jen Fan
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We feed all our eggshells right back to the chickens
 
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I spread eggshells in a ring around tender transplants in the theory that slugs don't like to cross the little sharp edges - if it does stop the slugs, the sow bugs eat the transplants instead, so now I need something quick and easy to discourage them!

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Sprinkle around my garden beds and into composting.

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Dan Boone
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Larry Jackson wrote:I read that the washed eggshells may be ground into a fine grit like fine cornmeal as an amendment to feed for the worms to aid in their digestion and calcium.



It may be that the worms need fine grinding.  But for feeding to chickens or putting into compost, my mom just kept the eggs in a coffee can (metal, this was a long time ago) and crunched them up from time to time with the bottom of whatever glass bottle was handy on the counter.  (Improvised mortar and pestle.)  She got them down to the point where the biggest pieces were about the size of a grain of rice.  

I don't have chickens, but I've been thinking that including eggshell grit in the mix we feed our wild birds might help their reproductive success.  

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Mike Haasl
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The half egg shells go right in our chicken compost bucket and given directly to the birds.  They grab the shells first and make short work of them.  No need to crush them for chickens from what I can tell.

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Heather Sharpe
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Ours mostly just go in the compost.
For giving them to wild birds, the Audobon society and many birders recommend putting the eggshells in a 250 degree oven for about 10 minutes before putting them outside. This is to avoid introducing any bacteria or whatnot from the chickens to the wild birds.

I would guess that isn't necessary if one is just giving the eggshells back to the chickens from whence they came?

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Hester Winterbourne
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Mike Haasl wrote: No need to crush them for chickens from what I can tell.



The reason for crushing them that I was given is that it's not a good idea to encourage hens to see large egg shells as food, in case they decide to try it when there's still an egg inside.
 
Mike Haasl
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I've heard that too but in my experience (only three years and 12-20 birds) it hasn't been a problem.  If an egg breaks in the nest box, they'll eat it but I don't see them doing it on purpose.  Even if I didn't give them shells, the occasional broken egg would be a better path to the dark side for them.

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Huck Johnson
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I toss shells in the chicken bucket so the chickens eat them with the other scraps. No problems with egg eating. And some of the hens have done it before.
 
jordan barton
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Right now our egg shells are going to our pigs. They eat them up and they disappear.  Otherwise they were just going into the compost as has been said already.

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