Will curtains help?

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klohman

klohman

In the Brooder
Mar 9, 2015
60
4
41
Illinois
I was wondering if adding curtains to the nest boxes would help an egg eating problem? They started off just eating 1 every now and then but now I am only getting 7-8 eggs out of 13 layers per day. (Normally we got 11-12) so I'm thinking they are being more sneaky now. I have plenty of material to do curtains, I'm just not sure what they need to look like...do you cut the fabric into slits? just cut one line down the middle? or don't waste my time?
 
In my class our teacher was saying one chicken eating eggs should be taken out of the flock before the othersl catch her drift.

Im not sure a curtain could help. Id say, without experience to back me up, that you might have better success altering the nest to be slanted, so the eggs roll out of the hens reach. How to do this im not sure. A good friend from work uses this system on his cages.
 
I'm working on a new coop now and am definitely constructing rollout boxes. Are you sure you have an eater? I thought I did, but it turned out that everyone was fighting over the same box (of course because that one is soooo much better!) and breaking one or two eggs in the jostle, which were then eaten. Curtains can help keep them out of sight, but they may catch on.
 
They are free range birds so they get lots of added nutrition, we are feeding them egg crumbles right now because we have a large age range in the coop at the moment, we also crush their shells and feed them back to them in scrap.

I know they are egg eaters because if we collect the eggs and set them down anywhere, they go right for them for a feast!

I did go ahead and hang the curtains cause I figured it couldn't hurt and I could always take them down. Our egg production (or atleast collection) has increased by a few per day! So I do think it's helping. On the other hand, now a few of them are sleeping in the boxes. I'm pretty sure that's from the terrible amount of gnats right now that they are trying to avoid. You win some you lose some....
 

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