Feeding Chickens Eggs - Nutrition Part 1

Chickens Eating Eggs?

Yes! Chickens love to eat eggs, it is one of their favorite treats and it is good for them!

Now some people might be a little weirded out by the thought of feeding chickens eggs, and I'd guess anyone would feel weird feeding chickens their own eggs - until you really think about it. We aren't turning our chickens in to little cannibals, the eggs we feed are unfertilized. When a baby chick is growing in an egg they feed off of the yolk. The contents of the egg are what baby chick grow from! What better source of nutrition can you ask for?

Benefits

• Poopy Butt - It has been a while since we've had to worry about poopy butt! Baby chicks have a hard time adjusting to new environments and to eating chicken starter. The first few weeks of their lives are stressful. We ordered our chicks online, which means they were shipped to us. I can only imagine how stressful that was for them. One of the great benefits of feeding your chickens eggs is it helps with this transition. It keeps them from getting their digestive system plugged up. We hard boiled eggs and crumbled the yolk up and put it in their chick starter. Their poopy butt was gone within a day!
• Easy and affordable treat - If you're raising laying hens then you will have plenty of eggs to go around. Save a few to cook up for your hens. This makes for a very affordable treat. We often just give our breakfast scraps to the hens. They love it!
• Tons of nutrition - great source of protein, beta carotene, vitamin A and vitamin E. Making feathers and laying eggs are nutrient sucking activities that our hens are always actively doing. They need the extra protein.

Cook them up first!

I've always fed my chickens cooked eggs. Usually I give them just the yolk of a hard boiled egg. They also love the left overs of a scrambled egg. I've read that if you give them raw eggs they will develop the habit of cracking open eggs before you collect them. I don't want my hens learning that bad behavior so I am sticking to cooked eggs only. If you only feed them cooked and outside of the shell they won't associate this lovely treat with the eggs they lay.

Egg Shells

Some people add oyster shells to their chicken feed to increase calcium intake for their laying hens. I save my egg shells! When I realized I can give the egg shells to the hens I started saving them in a bowl to go toss in the coop. They eat them up! It is way to easy to resist. I love any chance I can get to be self sufficient and use what I have. Every time I toss the shells to the chickens instead of in the garbage I feel a sense of accomplishment! Tip: If you're worried about developing an egg eating habit, ground up the shells to make a power to sprinkle on their feed.

Please share your thoughts or photos of your chickens enjoying eggs!