Egg shells

Our chickens back home were fed their eggshells for calcium (to make new strong shells - if they did not get enough shells their newly laid eggs sometimes had very soft shells indeed!) - I doubt that the battery hens get the same diet (our farmyard chickens lived off wheatgrain, grass and eggshells, with the shells being the main delicacy as far as the chickens were concerned), but I guess if you can feed the shells to the chickens then they can't be bad for the soil either...

 

Our bins are normal compost "Daleks". About three years ago our son came back from a fishing trip and chucked his leftover worms into one. Now we have two bins each with a thriving colony of worms.
We've also got a normal compost heap but tiger/brandling worms don't seem to breed in it.

 

Thanks everyone, it was a bin or a rabbit, like worms so will get some

 

I always used to put the eggshells back into hens' food, too! I still put them onto the compost heap. I've got a little surplus coffee grinder, so give them a few turns in that to break them down.

 

That eminds me. Liz - a bit off-thread, I know, sorry! But did people know that you can get bags of used coffee grounds from Starbucks? Free. :D

 

Thanks Dave W, I might give that a try this year.

 

Can egg shells that have been boiled be used for the compost also?
I always thought not!!

 

I can't think why not, boiling doesn't alter the chemical composition of the shell. I always bung them in, and nothing alarming has happened! In summer more dry and fibrous stuff is needed to balance the grass clippings, so every little helps.

 

Stupid question re: compost, but I only have about half of my bin filled up so far.. would the worms migrate to the bottom and stay there, or would they all leg it and live happy, free-range lives in the garden?

 

No MF, I haven't turned it yet. It's been in for about a month now - I'll give it a dig over this weekend - another job on the ever-increasing Bank Holiday list..!