Breaking eggs

[ovenman99]

How do u stop chickens from cracking and eating eggs just started couple days ago

 

[Chickenshoe]

Identify which one is doing it by observing dried egg on the chickens face...then remove the bird from the flock. give it away, eat it.. your call. Once they get a taste for it, it wont stop unless you take them out... I've known someone who told me he got rid of the entire flock and started over.. it might come to that...

 

[BSL Egger]

How do u stop chickens from cracking and eating eggs just started couple days ago

Also, you can do what I did. Fill the egg with mustard or anything spicy and put it back in the nest. I put blinders on my chicken and there have not been any eaten eggs since. She was doing this for about 1-2 weeks and it wasn't that hard to break. You can probably buy blinders at your local farm store.

 

[triplepurpose]

This is one of those prevention-worth-a-pound-of-cure things. Feeding them adequately (esp protein and calcium) is important in preventing this. People also will claim it's caused by throwing scraps containing eggshells, and while I can't prove them universally mistaken, I also can say that we have tossed the eggshells straight into the scrap bucket for over twenty years and only once has egg eating ever become a resl problem.

Also, mention this just started a "couple days ago." I have seen occasional accidents involving eggs laid with a very thin shell (often older hens) which get broken by mistake, and then eaten incidentally. This is very different from cases of deliberate, persistent egg eating where a chicken learns to break open eggs intentionally. It's important to make sure it's actually the latter, before losing your shirt overmuch over what may be just a handful of accidentally broken eggs.

CollectIng eggs often is also important--once a day, afternoon or evening, is bare minimum but remarkably not everyone does this. And if I were you, I'd collect as frequently as you can, while you try to determine what's happening, which will reduce the chances of eggs being broken either way, and increase your odds of catching an eggeater in the act, or with egg on its beak. Once you've determined that a chicken (or two) is actually deliberately breaking eggs, make chicken soup (there's really no other practical solution I know of). The one time we had a serious egg eater, my father was able to catch it in the act, though it took a while.

 

[CrazyTalk]

Identify which one is doing it by observing dried egg on the chickens face...then remove the bird from the flock. give it away, eat it.. your call. Once they get a taste for it, it wont stop unless you take them out... I've known someone who told me he got rid of the entire flock and started over.. it might come to that...

It doesn't stop because people rarely try to figure out what the actual problem is.

It's almost always a dietary issue - fix the dietary issue and it usually goes away. Get them on a good, higher protein feed (Flock raiser and oyster shells instead of Layer) and stop feeding them treats.