Easy way to crush egg shells.

[kcfd55]

608duj:

I don't eat enough eggs to supply my birds and it is easier to buy it by the pound than make my own.

I dropped by a local breakfast restaurant and asked for egg shells they had laying around. They gave me a large bag of them that I boiled.

Consider it recycling .

Mike

[Paul's Amazing Birds]

In my garage, I have a fast egg cooker that hard boils 7 eggs in less than 5 minutes. Hard boiled eggs are then cracked and tossed in a food processor (shells and all). A prepared nestling food by Volkman called Petamine is then added to the mix with a little water to make the batch a little crumbly.
Along with several different kinds of vitamin-fortified seed, some millet sprays and a variety of fresh veggies, my birds go through about a pound of this mixture every other day. I also have a tray of crushed oyster shells (can have some very sharp pieces) and some cuttle bone available. Over the years I never had any problem with egg shells. They seem to know how to selectively break it all down for themselves and their babies.

[Flight Feathers]

In my garage, I have a fast egg cooker that hard boils 7 eggs in less than 5 minutes. Hard boiled eggs are then cracked and tossed in a food processor (shells and all). A prepared nestling food by Volkman called Petamine is then added to the mix with a little water to make the batch a little crumbly.
Along with several different kinds of vitamin-fortified seed, some millet sprays and a variety of fresh veggies, my birds go through about a pound of this mixture every other day. I also have a tray of crushed oyster shells (can have some very sharp pieces) and some cuttle bone available. Over the years I never had any problem with egg shells. They seem to know how to selectively break it all down for themselves and their babies.

Wow amazing avairy and such beautiful birds!! Love the set up!!

[Sojourner]

I got some of the hatched and my birds actually do not prefer it. They will only eat it if they run out of just about everything else.

I have kept birds for years. My mother bred finches and parakeets and canaries when I was a kid. I use the blue mineral mix, egg shells that I have saved, sterilized, and crush as above. Never have I had a bird suffer any injury. There are sometimes larger pieces in the mineral mix and they break them up. I think that it CAN happen that a large piece is swallowed, but I've never seen it or heard of it from anyone I know.

I will stick with breaking them up by hand and using the blue mineral mix, also I keep a cuttlefish bone and mineral block in the cage. The mineral blocks are too hard for finchly beaks unless you break off a couple of corners or score it. Then they can get at it. Whenever the Hatched runs out I will not buy it again, but given the low rate of use for it that will probably be an extremely long time.