How to Reuse and Dispose of Eggshells Safely in Your Chicken Coop (Complete Guide)

How to reuse and dispose eggshells safely in your chicken coop? It’s a common question for most of the chicken raisers/

If you keep chickens for a long time, you’ll quickly see that eggshells start to build up everywhere. This mostly happens when you raise lots of egg-laying hens.

You could find them on your kitchen counter after breakfast, in the compost bucket, or all over the coop after a hen accidentally breaks an egg.

At first, you might want to throw eggshells away because they look like trash. But if you look more closely, you’ll see that they’re not at all easy.

Eggshells can be useful, harmful, full of nutrients, and very helpful, depending on how you use them.

Instead of throwing away eggshells or guessing what to do with them, you need a simple, science-based guide that shows you how to safely reuse or throw them away.

And that’s exactly what you’re going to get.

Why It’s Not As Easy As It Seems To Get Rid Of Eggshells

You might think that an eggshell is just a weak box. But in science, it’s a complicated bioceramic structure. The protein matrix that holds each shell together makes it tough. 

Calcium carbonate makes up 94–97% of each shell. That means that the shells you break while cooking could be a good source of calcium for your hens if you use them the right way.

Eggshells are weak, porous, and alive, which is the problem. Each shell has up to 17,000 tiny holes that let bacteria in and out. 

Salmonella can be found on the outside or inside of the membrane. When hens lay eggs, the shell often comes out of the cloaca with tiny germs on it that you can’t see. And the risk goes up a lot if the bedding in your coop is wet or dirty.

Never throw raw eggshells into the coop or give them to your hens to eat. You could be bringing a disease back to the flock, not just giving them a snack.

But that’s not the end of the threat. Even the parts of the egg that you can’t see smell good to predators. 

Raccoons, skunks, foxes, and rats all quickly sniff out the smell of egg proteins. They’ll come back more often once they smell that smell around your coop, and eventually, they’ll try to get through your fence.

Eggshells can also make one of the most annoying problems with flocks happen: they eat eggs. A curious hen only needs to peck a raw shell once to find out that eggs taste good. 

From then on, she will break eggs on purpose. Hens also learn from each other, so if one bird eats eggs, all the others will too.

With all these risks, it’s easy to see why people don’t pay enough attention to how to get rid of shells.

How To Safely Collect And Keep Eggshells

One of the easiest ways to make things better is to set a regular time to collect and store eggshells. When you break an egg, gently rinse the shell to get rid of any egg white or yolk that is still there. 

You don’t need soap; a quick rinse will get rid of smells and stop bacteria from growing.

After you rinse them, put the shells in a small container or a freezer bag. 

It doesn’t kill the bacteria, but it keeps them from growing while you get more. This simple step also keeps the shells from smelling bad and bringing fruit flies into your kitchen.

You need to clean the shells once you have enough of them to work with.

How To Clean Eggshells The Right Way

Heat is the only thing that will definitely kill germs on eggshells. And not just any heat; it has to be the right kind. The best way to do it is to bake them because that dries them out and kills any germs at the same time.

Put your shells on a baking sheet and heat them in the oven at 250°F (121°C) for 20 to 30 minutes to get them just right. 

This temperature does a great job of killing Salmonella and other germs. It also makes the shells so brittle that they can be broken easily and dries out the inner membrane.

Boiling shells also works, but they stay wet. You would have to dry them again after that, and if they don’t cool down quickly enough, bacteria can grow on damp shells. 

Letting the air dry is never enough. Salmonella can live on dried shells for weeks, and drying them at a low temperature can even help the bacteria grow.

After cleaning the shells, let them cool down. You can then safely use them again or throw them away.

Using Eggshells Again to Get Calcium

Giving your hens back their eggshells is a smart and good for the environment way to use them. But it has to be done the right way. 

Raw shells can spread germs or make animals eat eggs. On the other hand, crushed and sterilized shells are a safe and effective way to get more calcium.

Your hens need calcium to make strong eggshells. Each egg needs more than two grams of calcium.

Hens make shells at night when they aren’t eating by using a special bone reservoir called medullary bone. But if they don’t get enough calcium from their food, they take too much from their bones. 

This makes their shells weak, makes it hard for them to reproduce, and puts stress on their skeletons. If you do it right, processing eggshells won’t hurt your hens in any of those ways.

Once the shells are done baking, break them up into flakes that are 2 to 4 mm thick. This size is very important. If pieces are too small, they don’t stay in the digestive system long enough. 

Your hens won’t get the calcium they need to slowly release overnight. But if the flakes are too big or too much like real eggshells, people might want to eat eggs.

Put them in a different cup or feeder after you crush them instead of mixing them into the main feed. Hens know how much calcium they need and how to get it. They will only eat what their bodies need and leave the rest.

This method finishes the cycle of nutrients. You give your family eggs, and your hens get the calcium back that they gave.

Eggshells In The Yard

A lot of gardeners believe that eggshells can help with blossom end rot in tomatoes. But the real science shows that blossom end rot is usually caused by too much water, not too little calcium in the soil. 

If you don’t water your plants regularly, they might not be able to move calcium to the fruit that is growing. Eggshells that are still raw don’t break down quickly enough to be useful in one season. 

Calcium carbonate is a stable mineral, which means that a shell could stay in the ground for a long time. Adding whole shells won’t help with any urgent nutrient issues, though.

But eggshells are still useful in the garden. They break up the soil and make it easier for water to drain, which makes it better. 

When ground into a powder, they slowly release calcium over time. Worms can eat better and keep the pH level stable in worm bins with powdered shells.

You can use vinegar to turn eggshells into Water-Soluble Calcium (WCA) if you want to get results quickly.  This method turns calcium carbonate into calcium acetate, which plants can quickly absorb through their leaves.

Eggshells Are Good for Wild Birds

Wild birds have a hard time finding calcium during the nesting season, especially in the spring. Robins, bluebirds, and cardinals can all use crushed, sterilized eggshells to their advantage.

But the shells must be fully cooked. You could spread disease from your flock to the local ecosystem if you give wild birds raw eggshells. 

Sterilized shells protect wild birds and help them lay strong eggs without putting your biosecurity at risk. Put the shells in a shallow feeder that is far away from where your chickens are, so they don’t get sick.

Using Eggshells Around the House

One of the more surprising uses for eggshells is cleaning. Calcite makes eggshells hard enough to scrub dirt off but soft enough not to scratch metal or porcelain. 

When you mix them with dish soap and baking soda, they make a gentle, safe abrasive cleaner that works well on pots, pans, and sinks.

In the winter, bigger pieces of shell can also be useful. You can put them on icy steps or walkways to make them less slippery without hurting the concrete or soil. 

They don’t melt ice as salt does, but they do make surfaces safer and slowly turn into minerals that are good for the soil.

Some people think about using eggshells to wash their faces, but this is not a good idea. The sharp edges can cut the skin. Just clean the pots, not your face.

Things You Shouldn’t Do With Eggshells

Some habits seem harmless, but they can cause big problems.

Never put eggshells in your trash disposal. The membrane can wrap around the impellers, and the gritty shell pieces can get stuck in your pipes. 

They get harder over time and make deep clogs that only a pro can fix. Shells pile up at the bottom of septic systems and never break down.

Also, don’t throw away raw shells. They attract predators and rodents right away. Animals can smell it and find their way to your coop. 

Leaving raw shells in the garden or compost is just as dangerous because they take years to break down unless you powder them.

Last but not least, never give the flock shells that are still raw or only slightly dried. The dangers of pathogens are too great, and you might accidentally teach your hens to break and eat their own eggs.

What to Do When Eggshells Break in the Coop

If you find broken shells in your coop, you need to do something right away. A cracked egg in the nest box isn’t just a mess; it’s also a way for birds to get germs and start eating eggs.

Get rid of any raw egg residue you see right away. Remove the dirty bedding and replace it with fresh nesting material. If the shells are thin, the eggs may not have enough calcium. 

If that’s the case, giving your properly processed crushed shells can help the eggs get stronger in the future.

Also, think about the environment. Birds can break eggs if there are too many of them in the nest, the nest isn’t built right, or predators can get into the nest boxes. Fixing the root cause keeps the same problems from happening again.

A Simple And Reliable Way To Handle Eggshells

Making a schedule that your family and your flock can count on is the best way to deal with shells.

After using the shells, rinse them off, freeze them until you have a full batch, and then put them in the oven to sterilize them. 

Once they have cooled, break them up into small pieces and put them in a container. Put a small dish in your coop so that your hens can get to the flakes whenever they need more calcium.

You can grind up the shells and add them to compost or give them to wild birds if you don’t want to use them again. If you really have to throw them away, use municipal compost. 

Don’t ever throw them down the sink, drain, or in places where predators might be able to get to them. This routine keeps your flock healthy, keeps ticks, mites, fleas, and lice away, and makes sure they get the food they need.

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Summary

Eggshells are not just trash from the kitchen; they are a valuable and complicated resource that you need to use correctly to keep your chickens and garden healthy and safe. 

If you just throw away raw shells, they can spread germs like Salmonella, attract predators like raccoons, rats, and foxes because of the smell, and make your hens eat eggs, which is bad for them.

The best way to fix things is to do them right. To kill any germs, you should always bake eggshells at 250°F (121°C) for 20 to 30 minutes. This treatment with heat kills bacteria and makes the shells safe and easy to use.

Once they have been cleaned, eggshells are very useful. You can use them again as a high-quality calcium supplement for your chickens if you crush them into medium flakes (2–4 mm) and give them to them separately. 

This helps keep their bones and eggshells strong. You can use powdered shells in the garden to make the soil better and keep the pH stable. 

They can also be changed into Water-Soluble Calcium (WCA), which works quickly. They can also safely feed wild birds during the nesting season.

Don’t throw shells in the trash; put them in the garbage disposal or give them to your flock without first treating them. You can safely recycle this valuable resource by rinsing it, freezing it, baking it, and crushing it on a regular basis. 

This will turn any possible contamination and risk into a nutritional benefit for your birds and a useful tool for your home.