Can Ducks eat eggshell?

[CT]

So, I'm fairly new to bird ownership, and I have chickens, who aren't even old enough to lay yet. But I'm babysitting 3 khaki campbells (and a dog, fish, and four rabbits) while a friend is on vacation.

I hard-boiled and peeled a bunch of (chicken) eggs today for lunch. My chicks are too young for the extra calcium of ground eggshell, but maybe the ducks could use them? Is it safe to feed eggshell to ducks? If so, should I just sprinkle it on their food?

--Caren

 

[mrslb333]

Yes it should be fine they love hard boiled eggs too

 

[Rns-chickenraisers]

I feed my chickens and ducks egg shells almost everyday. My female pekin absolutelybloves them!

 

[featherfinder]

I hard boil the eggs then smash and cut them up shell and all and feed to them. They love it. It's extra calcium.

 

[FarmrGirl]

you betcha! Every eggshell from those I eat go into a bowl to feed back to the birds and when I've hatched out babies I do the same with those shells too (the mama would normally eat them anyway once her brood has hatched). Some of my ducks totally ignore them and some scarf them up like they haven't eaten in a week! It's helps put the calcium right back into their system.

 

[CT]

Yeah!

I'll toss it into their feed tomorrow. And I think I'll find them a bunch of juicy slugs, as I'm about to go out to my rain drenched garden to pick the pumpkins. Now, to find some old tupperware to use as a slug cage.

It's nice to have someone to feed my evil garden pests to. My chickens still look at anything bigger than a potatobug with suspicion, and there's no way they are touching a slug! Who ever heard of fussy chickens?

 

[newbyduckmom]

How small do the eggshells need to be? Washed I assume? Any best practices on how to break them up? Suitable substitute for oyster shell? Will chicken eggs work as well? Do you give it to them preferably separately as with oyster shell?

 

[CT]

I just crushed them in a mortar and pestle.

(No slug hunts for me. Raining cats/dogs now.)

 

[grawg]

I'm always surprised at the size of the slugs that ducks will eat. I've thrown one in the coop that was as big as my thumb and it was gone as soon as it touched ground.

 

[Amiga]

Slug eating is the reason I have my runners!