Egg shells, eggshells

Description:  

Egg shells can be available in large quantities from hatcheries and from plants that shell eggs or prepare dried egg powder. Approximately 84 % of the eggshell is ash of which most is calcium carbonate. Where sources of calcium are unavailable, eggshells can be sterilized, ground and used as a highly available source of calcium.

Caution:  

Adequate heat needs to be applied to assure that all pathogenic organisms are destroyed prior feeding.

Source:  

Hatcheries and egg processing plants

Feeding Experiments: 

When eggshell meal was added to a commercial layer diet it was found that eggs where heavier and shells thicker (3) (CAB N615496) (Simeonova, 1984). It was found that eggshell meal could be used to replace all of the limestone in layer diets or bone meal (1) (CAB 761445448) (Neri, 1976), (2) (CAB 751434003) (Vandepopuliere, 1975), (4) (CAB 771461951) (Walton, 1977). It was found to be a suitable replacement for any inorganic calcium source in application in layer diets (5) (CAB N616972) (Zander, 1983) and performance was found to be similar or superior (6) (CAB N548926) (Sim, 1983). Eggshell meal was found to be a highly available source of calcium, with no effect on DM intake or egg production being observed (8) (CAB 981413179) (Scheideler, 1998). Other research showed that when eggshell meal was fed that no differences in egg production, egg weight, feed conversion and specific gravity of eggs were observed (9) (AGRIS 94-114063) (Tadtiyanant, 1993). Biological availability of calcium in eggshell meal was determined to be 93.8 % and true absorption of calcium was 96.3 % (7) (CAB 981410744) (Bao, 1998). 

Nutrient Characteristics: