Poultry Talk Ontario (pto.ca)

We have not been able to buy bags of crushed oyster shell for at least a year. I haven't heard any reason why. Is it the same in Ontario?

Bought some recently at Peavey Mart. (Used to be Tractor Supply).

Linda

I buy my poultry feed at Peavey Mart all the time. As of 2 weeks ago they still didn't have any. I checked after I read your reply Linda and now they have "Layer Blend Oyster Shell Pellets". I've never bought any shell pellets. Is that what you have? What are they like?

No. Mine is pure oyster shell and I feed it separately.

If you don't want to risk the Layer Blend Oyster Shell Pellets, perhaps you could save your egg shells, crush them and use those.

Linda

I bought a big bag (they only had 40 lbs? bags) many years ago and I've never seen a chicken eat them. I always have a container in the coop. They get food scraps and feed in the winter. Our chickens free range Spring to Fall and rarely eat feed. They seem to really like grass and insects. Do chickens need oyster shells?

@lolotsung not really as they get lots of calcium from forage. Thing is they need levels of vitamins to allow them to absorb the calcium. I have a bucket of oyster shell in the turkey coop and they just serve themselves from it.