Trying to figure out what's going on -- yesterday I found a broken egg in a nesting box, and today I found two broken eggs, one had a small hole in it and was intact otherwise, it was sitting in the nesting box next to another box with a hen in it -- I fished the broken egg out and 10 minutes later found the hen had moved over to the box where the broken egg had been, laid her own egg, and in the box where she'd been sitting previously was an egg belonging to another hen, probably laid a bit earlier, which was broken in half and oozing all over the nesting box. Since they leave eggs on top of each others eggs all the time, I had the feeling it might have been broken before she sat on it, but who knows. I'm a bit befuddled trying to figure out what's going on.
The eggs are fine with pretty sturdy and thick shells -- the girls get oyster shell in their laying feed and I give them lots of other things, greens and veggies, a little cheese from time to time, and so forth. The eggs don't have thin shells, takes a good whack or two to break one.
Could a bird or even rat be running into the small coop and be trying to eat the eggs? Even with the hens right there? Could the hens themselves be pecking into each others' eggs, do they do this? They have been more or less on the same schedule suddenly the last few days and all 4 going in to lay in the 3 boxes about the same time -- all three nesting boxes were full with one girl waiting in the wings yesterday.
Haven't seen any snakes about in years and only a small rat in the enclosure and scurrying away a couple of times a couple of months ago -- I had the feeling rat bait had done away with them. I only see birds (blue jays mostly) and a couple of squirrels who come in and eat seed around the enclosure.
I am not always around to monitor and grab an egg as soon as it's laid but wonder if I might need to do that -- sure hate finding them broken like this.
Any advice or ideas or is this just something that happens, one of those mysteries??
The eggs are fine with pretty sturdy and thick shells -- the girls get oyster shell in their laying feed and I give them lots of other things, greens and veggies, a little cheese from time to time, and so forth. The eggs don't have thin shells, takes a good whack or two to break one.
Could a bird or even rat be running into the small coop and be trying to eat the eggs? Even with the hens right there? Could the hens themselves be pecking into each others' eggs, do they do this? They have been more or less on the same schedule suddenly the last few days and all 4 going in to lay in the 3 boxes about the same time -- all three nesting boxes were full with one girl waiting in the wings yesterday.
Haven't seen any snakes about in years and only a small rat in the enclosure and scurrying away a couple of times a couple of months ago -- I had the feeling rat bait had done away with them. I only see birds (blue jays mostly) and a couple of squirrels who come in and eat seed around the enclosure.
I am not always around to monitor and grab an egg as soon as it's laid but wonder if I might need to do that -- sure hate finding them broken like this.
Any advice or ideas or is this just something that happens, one of those mysteries??