Tums for Calcium?

[Hufflefluff]

Hello all!
I was reading a gardening book recently that was talking about how a Tums tablet dissolved in a gallon of water could provide calcium to tomatoes (to prevent them from splitting). Anyway, that got me wondering if you could dissolve Tums in chicken water to meet their calcium needs. I'm guessing probably not (it would introduce a serious risk of too much calcium intake, for one, and free choice for supplements is always the way to go,) but I thought it was an interesting idea. What do y'all think? (knowing that I'm not planning to try it, so don't freak out )

 

[Creteloc]

I had to Google it. The first thing that came up is using Tums to help with treating an egg-bound hen. I guess it won't kill them.

 

[AmazingRachel]

I guess you could but oyster shells would be better because they release the calcium over a longer period of time.

 

[wyoDreamer]

I may try it for my Tomatoes.

I found this online:
Are TUMS a good calcium supplement?
While many people do take Tums as a calcium supplement, they aren’t the best choice. Tums contain calcium carbonate, which is one of the cheapest and most common forms of calcium, but is not very bioavailable. If you use Tums as a calcium supplement, you won’t actually be absorbing much calcium.

so I would venture to say - No, not a good source of calcium.

 

[casportpony]

I may try it for my Tomatoes.

I found this online:
Are TUMS a good calcium supplement?
While many people do take Tums as a calcium supplement, they aren’t the best choice. Tums contain calcium carbonate, which is one of the cheapest and most common forms of calcium, but is not very bioavailable. If you use Tums as a calcium supplement, you won’t actually be absorbing much calcium.

so I would venture to say - No, not a good source of calcium.

 

[Hufflefluff]

I may try it for my Tomatoes.

I found this online:
Are TUMS a good calcium supplement?
While many people do take Tums as a calcium supplement, they aren’t the best choice. Tums contain calcium carbonate, which is one of the cheapest and most common forms of calcium, but is not very bioavailable. If you use Tums as a calcium supplement, you won’t actually be absorbing much calcium.

so I would venture to say - No, not a good source of calcium.

Wow, thank you! That's just the type of information I was looking for. The cost appealed to me, but it's really interesting to see why they're so cheap. Thank you for all the great info

 

[Folly's place]

Hens lay down the eggshell in the very early morning hours, long after they would be eating any Ca supplement. Oyster shell is absorbed slowly, so it's available at that time for the hen. Rapidly metabolized Ca supplements, including finely ground egg shells, are no longer available then, so aren't as useful to the hen right when she needs them.
I'd bet that the same applies to Tums. Besides, bags of oyster shell are CHEAP, at least in the USA.
Mary

 

[wyoDreamer]

My chickens lay eggs throughout the course of the day. I close the pop door, give them some feed and gather eggs at 6 pm. The light stays on until 8 or 8:30 pm. There have been a number of times that i have found eggs in the nest box in the morning after gathering them the night before.

 

[Folly's place]

Yup. In most flocks, lights are on in the early morning, not at night.
Most of my birds lay eggs before 1 pm, although a couple of them wait until 3 or 4 pm every day.
Mary

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Good discussion here. I just wanted to add a couple points. Tums are calcium carbonate (CaCO3) but so are egg shells, oyster shells and limestone. CaCO3. is made up of 40% calcium. It gets broken down during digestion and then reformulated into CaCO3 in the uterus (shell gland).
The bulk of the calcium(Ca) in an egg shell is metabolized from the medullary bone in the skeleton of the hen. That then is replaced by Ca in the diet. But plasmatic calcium turnover is extremely fast during eggshell formation, meaning a laying hen's ability to rapidly absorb calcium in all intestinal segments is faster than virtually any other animal instantly supplying the blood stream with the calcium necessary to provide the uterus with needed calcium.
For more detailed information and an interesting read, I refer to this scientific article: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1516-635X2009000100007

As Mary said, the large particle calcium like crushed oyster shell stays in the upper digestive tract longer than the minute particle in feed and makes it available to the bloodstream during the night when the egg is normally in the shell gland. It has been noted that layers often pick up the oyster shell when the egg enters the shell gland which often happens in the late afternoon. This is because the laying cycle is normally at least 25 hours. For this reason, the bulk of eggs are laid in the morning until the lay cycle catches up to a 24 hour clock and then the eggs begin to come later each day till the hen skips a day, holding the egg that would normally come at night till the next morning.
http://www.nutrecocanada.com/docs/s...-formation-and-eggshell-quality-in-layers.pdf

So to answer the original question, the calcium carbonate from Tums in water would be in solution and some may pass right through the digestive tract without absorption. Further, one wouldn't be able to assess how much the hens are getting.

It is important to note here that there are other things than simply calcium intake that affect shell quality. Most importantly, the ratio of calcium to phosphorus as well as the availability of vitamin D3, magnesium and manganese.
http://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/1003/factors-influencing-shell-quality/
http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/vm013

As for tomatoes, the splitting is a result of soil drying out and then after a rain or irrigation, the plant takes up water faster than the skin can grow and the meat of the tomato swells splitting the skin starting at the stem and progressing down the fruit.
Mulching the plants helps a great deal as well as deep watering.