With all of the effort my ladies go through to lay an egg, it feels wrong somehow not to use the whole thing. Plus, there are soooo many ways to use the shells. Even it you don’t have chickens, you can still totally use the shells from your purchased eggs.
Here’s a couple of cool ways to put those vitamin-rich eggshells to good use:
- Use as a seed pot. Crack the shells open, rinse them, place them back in the egg carton, and fill the half shell with dirt. Then plant your seeds. When it is time to transplant into the garden, plant the whole thing {just gently crush the sides and bottom of the shell}–you won’t disturb the root system of your delicate seedling and the shell will easily compost.
- Make your own houseplant fertilizer. Allow eggshells to soak in water for 3-4 days, then use it to water your plants.
- Add boiled eggshells to coffee grounds before brewing to decrease the bitterness. Make sure to used boiled eggshells only to reduce the presence of bacteria. {I’m not a coffee drinker, I wonder if the HH will be willing to be my guinea pig on this one?!}
- Boost the calcium in your tomato plants. Just place crushed eggshells in the hole when transplanting tomatoes–the extra calcium in the shells can help to prevent blossom-end rot.
- Deter slugs by sprinkling crushed eggshells around your plants. They won’t slime their way across them so it creates a barrier between them and the plant.
- Compost them. Simple, understated, effective. Enough said.
- Clean stained tea pots. Put crushed eggshells, a little dishsoap, and water into a teapot. Swish it around and allow them to sit overnight. In the morning, dump the mixture, and you should have a clean teapot.
- Clean your garbage disposal and pipes. Run eggs shells through the garbage disposal and down through your pipes. They act as fiber for your pipes, scraping the sides, and removing deposits as they travel. {If you’re really on top of things, you can use the mixture you made to clean out your teapot–ah, isn’t multi-purposing fun?}
- Feed them to Fido. Eggshells make a great calcium supplement for dogs. Bake eggshells at 205 degrees for 30 minutes to destroy bacteria, then pulverize them and add them to the dog food.
- Give the crushed shells to right back to your chickens. Make sure they are from eggs that have been hard boiled and rinsed to avoid introducing bacteria to the birds. {Although, several people have suggested that I do this, I don’t feed my chickens their shells.}
So, I’ve got to know, what do YOU do with your leftover eggshells?
~Mavis
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Kelly says
Hi Mavis,
We don’t feed the eggshells to our chickens either. One of the reasons that we don’t is because sometimes chickens will become “egg suckers” and it’s hard to break them of the habit once it develops. My family has always felt that feeding the chickens egg shells will only encourage (and confuse) them to eat the eggs. We have one chicken who cracks the eggs open to eat them, and it is really annoying because it makes a mess, and then we can’t eat them!
Ellen Baber says
Try putting a bit of Borax in warm water to wash the egg/shell mess off.
Beth says
I would not suggest Borax. As it can be used as a pesticide. All you need to do is wash shells thoroughly in hot water and let dry. Then feed your chickens with shells. This will not lead them to eat their own eggs. We have done this for years now and it does not lead to this. If chickens do start to eat eggs there are very simple ways to break the habit.
JJ Ordway says
You can do the same steps you would for dog digestion, but add the egg shells to bird food, or set them in an area they normally scratch. I have a favored rhody the birds love to scratch under I set the “larger” ones in. I also make bird cakes (think suet) with old stale oats or cereal or even crackers and add the shells to that with PB and melted lard (Or suet). Those hang in the trees. Helps the natural birds to have nice thick shells in case the cats find ’em. 🙂
Kim says
I feed the majority of the shells back to the girls. I don’t boil them but just kind of crunch them into small pieces. I don’t know why but my girls simply won’t eat the oyster shells and if I don’t give them the eggshells, their shells get so thin that they crack just picking them up out of the nest. When they get their own shells back, they lay nicely shelled eggs.
Kelli says
I bake the eggshells, then crush them and feed them back to my girls. Both of my grandmothers and my mother baked the shells and never had an egg eater.
christy says
eggshells are invaluable as an addition to a worm bin. i save them in a gallon zip lock bag. when full, i use a rolling pin to crush. then i spoon them into my electric coffee grinder and pulverize. every time i feed my worms, i add a few tablespoons to the kitchen scraps. the calcium neutralizes the build-up of acidity in the bin, as well as acting as needed grit for the worms’ gizzards.
Donna Jantzer says
Worms have gizzard? Fascinating! This is a wonderful tip.
Lisa N says
I just throw them in the compost heap.
Heather H. says
Trying this to keep the slugs away!
Kerry Countryman says
My mom and I volunteer to crack the eggs for the Lutheran church’s pancake breakfast. We crack 60 dozen. Then my mom uses them to make cascarones (confetti eggs) to sell for Easter. One year she made enough money to pay for the venue for my wedding reception.
Mavis says
Holy crackers! That is awesome. 🙂
Alecs says
How do you do the confetti eggs?
PattyB says
When I was a kid, my school would have a Fiesta every year and the Mexican ladies would make these. Just crack the tops off the egg, wash and let them dry. Fill with confetti and glue a little colorful piece of tissue paper to the top. We kids would buy them and crack them over our friends heads from behind.
bonnie fuentevilla says
Don’t forget calcium for us woman-folks. Boil, grind in blender and fill gelatin capsules.
BJ says
Curiosity got the better of me and I had to try the egg shells in the coffee. I noticed the coffee (we are drinking Maxwell House that family had left for us-its horrible for acid re-flux!) tasted a little different, not bad just different. I also noticed that I didn’t use nearly half of the sugar I usually have had to add in order to choke it down! And, wait for it…..no re-flux 🙂 So I waited a few days and tried it again, same results, less sugar and no re-flux!
I would say it does help at least with Maxwell House brand coffee 🙂
Thanks for posting.
christine says
you can crush them and put them round your plants slugs hate going over the top of them.
carol says
Evidently, if you crush them and put them around plants, they deter cutworms, as well as slugs and snails.
Ray says
They lay faster than we can use or give away so every few days I scramble what eggs we have and add crushed shells in with the eggs as they cook and feed back to my chickens , and they love the eggs . Nothing wasted !
Beth says
Feeding your chickens their own eggshells is highly recommend and an easy recycle and budget fix. If you rinse your eggshells thoroughly in hot water and let air dry then crush them up there will be no temptation to the chickens to eat their own eggs. If you leave a lot of yolk or eggs in their egg she’ll form then yes they would be tempted to eat their eggs.