[Vecten]

OK, I need help here. How do you prepare an eggshell? And what does baking it do?

[Aunt Sally]

And I for one will ALWAYS listen to what Munty says about poultry care.  I've never known him give poor advice.

[Aunt Sally]

Forget the egg shell now Vecten that is not the original question.  These are:

I have a few questions though for someone more experienced than me:

- Do I need oyster shell, the place I bought them from said I should not use it as it would unbalance the calcium phosphorous ratio

- At the moment they are on fresh lawn, I doubt it will stay that way for long, I don't have that big a garden to keep moving the run to a fresh place. I was thinking of digging down a few inches, laying some old tiles I have spare down and then putting wood chip on top, the type you get from garden centers. Would that be OK? Any better suggestions?

- I had to collect them one by one tonight from the run and place them in the coop as it was pretty much dark. Do they normally go in by themselves or is that something I will have to do each night?

[Vecten]

OK. I'll forget the eggshell question. We dont want the thread locked again do we.

[hillfooter]

well 50 yrs is a long time for being around chickens ,but i have had the same time experiance as your self my friend but here is where we differ ,i have had a hundred odd years before that with parents and grandparents being involved in farming, raising birds for the table and market place  also being involved with game reaing pheasants / partridges in number. ok so i dont have the qualifications of being a scientist or animal nutritionist.but frankly that means nothing.what counts is having the gathered experiance in handling and looking after hundreds of thousands of birds over 150yrs . what advice i offer is taken from that experiance .not from books or college courses. and to be honest if the scientific world left the birds alone to be given what nature intended them to have in the first place the poultry world would not be in the cruddy place it now finds itself with avain flu and such......  
and on the subject of using cruhed eggshells  its been done for years and its only when they are not prepared properly they cause problems....

No need to be indignant Muntjac,

I'm sure 100 years ago your advice was right you would have needed to add calcium to grain feeds but modern layers feeds are formulated to provide all a laying birds nutritional needs.  As I said don't take my word for it ask the feed companies.  However if anyone is going to feed self formulated grain feeds or household scraps then they will need to supplement which was why I mentioned poultry spice and explained now it fits in to chicken nutrition.  That's certainly the hard way to do things for backyard keepers.

I'm sure if people have the facts they can decide for themselves what advice they listen to.

Best regards
HF

[Aunt Sally]

My hens eat pellets and need oyster HF.  They free range most of the time so their diet is not entirely pellets.

The level of calcium in pellets is designed for farm hens who eat NOTHING else and are slaughtered after their second season.  My oldest hybrid is 6 years old and still laying good eggs.

Please get back on topic now the other, two points need an answer, or YES Vecten. I will lock it !

[Aunt Sally]

No need to be indignant Muntjac,

    That's not Munty being indignant HF,  that's his normal way of writing.

Indignant is far worse

[muntjac]

No need to be indignant Muntjac,

    That's not Munty being indignant HF,  that's his normal way of writing.

Indignant is far worse

 ty and i will answer with just one comment.tho not made by me

Science is always wrong.  It never solves a problem without creating ten more.  ~George Bernard Shaw

[joyfull]

right back on topic:-
1) Yes I feel they need oyster shell or washed, baked then crushed egg shells - I do mine fairly fine but not to dust as advised by my poultry vet.
2) Can't help with the run details as mine all free range except when I have new hens that are kept in a seperate pen and run (on grass) just in case they are incubating any illness which sadly a lot do owing to poultry keeping being so popular now and some breeders just hatching loads in order to cash in on this fact. Hopefully somebody with chickens in runs will let you know what they do 

[evie2]

We have small runs (about the same size as yours stone) attached to both coops and that's where we have their food and water.  Our big girls also have free range of the garden from 6.30am, the poots and bantams have an enclosure 15ft x 15ft at the moment although they will be moving to a larger one soon.  In the smaller runs we put down bliss and change it every 2-4 weeks depending on the weather.  In the winter the small runs are also enclosed with heavy duty plastic to keep the food dry.

Hope that's a bit helpful 

[st0ne5ish]

Great thanks all, didn't realise the questions would cause such a debate 

I will supply oyster shell now I think.

Still undecided really on what to do with the flooring, they have already stripped a good area of grass around the edge.

Tonight two went into the coop themselves, I had to put the other two in, so they are going in the right direction, hopefully tomorrow they will all go in by themselves.

Another two eggs today, kids loved finding them, the Mrs is now warming to the idea, she was really excited when the kids found the eggs 

[joyfull]

you will find on here as with everything in life when you ask a question you will get lots of different answers (and everybody thinks  theirs is the right one  ) 

[ManicMum]

It's really great to have the input of so many experienced experts on here.  The fact that you all have different opinions with anecdotal evidence to back them up enriches life! 

I read everything then pick and choose from it all to fit with my budget and situation.

Please carry on posting to give us new keepers a variety of options.

[Aunt Sally]

I read everything then pick and choose from it all to fit with my budget and situation.

And that is exactly the right thing to do MM

[joyfull]

exactly - you do what suits your situation just so long as no animal suffers