Are those of you that raise chickens having trouble finding oyster shell? All I can find is a pelletised form that my hens won't eat. The local feed stores say the state of Washington has declared the dust from crushing the shells is a hazardous substance and closed down the crushers. I wondered if this is a problem everywhere and if so is there a suitable alternative?

My friend uses a mix of granular limestone and some other grit

Eggs shells are an alternative. Most people bake them first (they say it prevents causing egg eating) then break them up and feed them back to the hens.

I would try pulverized limestone or grit. We like to feed fine gravel from a local quarry.

If you are feeding a quality layer feed it will already have upped calcium in it for them and you shouldn't need to provide extra. I do use it for my show quality birds because I feed them a breeder feed and I don't think there's enough in it, I mix it in with their feed.

I’d look at some of the blasting media available in your area or sift some gravel of the bigger rocks if you need it for grit.

Purina Layena feed comes with oyster shell in it.

I get mine at Mills Fleet Farm

Have you tried online search?

What do they do with all the lobster shell from the Maine fishery ?

Most of the oyster shells we get come from the gulf states here it might be a regional problem.

Apalachicola Bay, one of the largest oyster fisheries on the coast has crashed and is closed to oytering until 2025. Currently oysyer shells are being dumped back into the bay to help create new oyster beds.

THIS

Dad did this. The baking makes them really brittle and easier to crush. He would toss them in a bag then go over them with a rolling pin until they were pretty finely ground before mixing.

Like mentioned, any decent layer feed provides plenty of calcium.

Yup most layer feeds already have calcium. I feed the shells back, just let them dry for a day and crunch them up . Never have problems with them eating eggs if you collect them regular.

I feed purina feed but still get weak shells. Feeding back egg shells is not an option as I sell a dozen dozen every week. They are still free range as we have no snow yet so grit is not a problem. Thanks for all your replies.

Feed lime should work, it’s a really fine ground lime that’s used in chicken feed here because of the availability compared to oyster shells also when they’re grinding feed for millions of layers lime is cheaper.

4 grams of calcium per day and each egg uses 2 grams per laying chicken.
one reason that they use the dried poultry manure and re-feed it, besides the protein extraction is greater the next pass through
but you can only do this so many times
The lime ground should be 2-4 mm in size and the gizzard does the rest.

Never knew that

Thank you for the information.

I just use barn lime from feed store. Tractor supply has it for $3.50 per 50lb bag. Just put it in our run and they eat what they need.