Crushed Eggshells

Eggshell powder is one natural supplement I add to the dog's food. I don't put more than ⅓ teaspoon of eggshell powder into the dog's food daily. I skip it if she's ingesting ground bones or chicken feet. It's not difficult to calculate how much calcium and phosphorus are needed for a 7kg dog. I'm not pedantic to count it like an exact science. I simply watch her calorie intake according to the level of exercise she gets that week. A dog's diet is balanced on a weekly basis to a monthly average, rather than looking at daily intake.   

There're numerous instructions available on the internet on how to clean, dry and grind eggshells into powder. I usually wing it. I clean it and dry it, and bake it at 120dC for eight minutes. Don't bake it for longer than that. Adjust the temperature in ratio with the time. Eggshells tend to end up stinking if it's over-baked. I had a bunch of eggs last week and saved enough shells to grind them powder. 

I really don't mind buying eggshell powder since it's inexpensive. Well, at S$3.80 for an 80g-pack, it's something that I can have for free if I can be bothered to do it at home. Some other shops retail a 100g pack for S$10 because they use organic eggshells from New Zealand. Hahaha. The eggs I buy are good enough. I don't need it organic since we don't usually eat raw eggs nowadays. They're at least poached. I accumulated enough eggshells in the little box, I got out the blender. Nine eggshells yielded about 130 grams of powder. It should last us three months. It doesn't need to be refrigerated. Storing it in an airtight container will do. 

Well, the humans and the dog eat lots of eggs at home weekly, so technically we'll never run out of eggshells to bake and grind into powder. It's just a matter of how long the peeled eggshells keep in the fridge, how much I want to accumulate versus how often a round of eggshells is to baked and ground.