Aussie Finch Forum

I save eggs shells for my finches I don't bake them but I always wash them well in hot water and peel the remaining membrane and crush them well. If you leave the membrane that's where the nasty bacteria breeds and accumulates. I don't think it's a good idea giving them raw egg or any finch eggs. Once some birds develop the taste for raw eggs they will start stealing other birds eggs, it is best not to encourage that. Peking Robins, Chaffinches and some softbills are notorious for that but any bird can develop the taste for raw eggs. It is impossible to cure that I know there are sprays commercially available but nothing works, you'd have to buy another bird.

I bake mine simply so it can be safely stored for long periods. We have chooks so accumulate fairly large quantities of eggshells so longer term storage is essential. Through winter when the chooks lay less eggs & the Gouldians eat more shells my usage catches up with supply.

Tiaris wrote:I bake mine simply so it can be safely stored for long periods. We have chooks so accumulate fairly large quantities of eggshells so longer term storage is essential. Through winter when the chooks lay less eggs & the Gouldians eat more shells my usage catches up with supply.

I do much the same. Large supply comes from working the BBQ at the local soccer club every so often.
Apart from baked or nuked shells I've always been concerned about any type of egg food going off rapidly. I don't feed boiled egg because I can only feed once a day in the morning and I don't think its safe to leave for 24 hours. Maybe I'm over cautious or maybe it's school memories of urky warm egg sandwiches.

Point taken vettepilot_6, here in the Victoria our climate is more tolerable then up north in the hotter climate zones and will put a different spin an raw Egg Shell out in the open, yesteryears Aviculturists firmly believed in the Sun sterilizes everything, with todays knowledge we can safely over rule that assumption of yesteryear, and for those who live in the hotter parts of this county precautions must be taking when feeding Egg Shells to Birds.Cheers

make egg biscuit with the egg and then microwave the egg shell for about 20 seconds just to dry it out and then leave to cool and then crush up to a fine mix for the birds then put in a dish and feed.

I prefer caution - i wash them and nuke them for 3 minutes. When we make them egg mix (every now and again) we boil the eggs for 15 minutes.

Thanks for all the replies and responses. I will continue to feed them raw shells and monitor more closely during the summer.
If I have to cook empty egg shells, I would simply not give them egg shells - just give them shell grit instead.
Or only feed egg shells whenever I did boil them (which is not very sterile anyway).

For reasons previously explained, cooking shells is not very convenient so I was trying to assess how essential it was.

Winston