Egg-eating

[IloveBuffy]

I am not getting many eggs, and there is sometimes sticky stuff in the nest box. How do I identify the egg-eater/s? I have golf balls in there, but they are not working. Has anybody successfully done this without culling?

 

[buck-buck]

I think I replied to the wrong thread so at the risk of repeating myself:

I just broke my birds of eating eggs after making the mistake of letting a non-chicken owner watch our flock of 11 when we went on vacation. There’s an article about this in BYC but you fill eggs with dish soap and let your girls have at those. The way I did it was to take a "turkey nail" (it came with a turkey baster but I don't know what it’s for) that was sitting in our utensil l drawer for who knows how long to poke a hole all the way through both sides of the egg (the long way). Swirl the ‘nail’ around inside the eggs to break the yolk. Carefully blow out the egg into a bowl and cook it up (or freeze it for later). Glue a tiny piece of paper towel, (or egg shell) over one of the two holes on the egg and let the glue dry. Saturate the paper towel with glue so its water proof. You could probably even just plug the hole with hot glue.

Prior to all this I went to Walgreens and asked the pharmacist for the biggest oral syringe they had (which they'll give you for free). Fill the syringe with dish soap and inject the soap into your hollow eggs. Plug the other hole once they are filled and you’re ready for battle. Put them in your nesting boxes and check for new eggs as often as possible (I checked 3 times a day). You’ll have to keep replacing the soap eggs for a few days but your birds will figure out that eggs don’t taste so great.

One final note: I gave them a pie pan of oyster shell in their run -- just in case there was a deficiency. Good luck. Above all and contrary to popular belief: DON'T CULL YOUR BIRDS BECAUSE OF THIS. YOU CAN RE-TRAIN THEM. It took about 1-2 weeks but they're staying away from their egss now.

 

[gummybear24]

They are eating their eggs because of a deficiency. Luckily there is an easy way to fix this. I buy store bought eggs and give them scrambled eggs. I know that sounds funny but it is a different texture and will stop them eating their eggs. I feed ours scrambled eggs once or twice a week. Hope this helps you

 

[chicken farmer]

Put a little hole in a raw egg and fill it with food coloring then the egg eater will have a colored beak

 

[Farmgirl1000]

I am not getting many eggs, and there is sometimes sticky stuff in the nest box. How do I identify the egg-eater/s? I have golf balls in there, but they are not working. Has anybody successfully done this without culling?

This is how to get rid of an egg eater.
1. Take a unbroken egg and make a small hole in it.
2. Then drain everything out of the egg .
3. Fill it with mustard and put it back in the nesting box.
Chickens HATE the taste of mustard and they will not peck into any eggs anymore .
I have tried this and it works really well.

 

[Kurovod]

Carve egg-shaped forms from bars of light-colored soap and put them in the nest. It works!

 

[MashedPotatos]

We had an egg eater, but we only have 3 hens so all we did was put bread and other food scraps out there and they became more interested in the food than their eggs.

 

[WalkingOnSunshine]

They are eating their eggs because of a deficiency.

I wish this was true, but egg-eating is usually caused because a hen accidentally breaks an egg, tastes it and likes what it tastes like. Chickens think eggs are yummy and they learn to break them fairly quickly once they figure out that there is goody inside. This is why you should never feed raw egg with the shell to chickens.

If the golf balls aren't working, the best way to ID the egg eater is to inspect beaks carefully for signs of egg yolk, and cull the offender. It's really hard to stop a dedicated egg eater. If you want to try everything first, look in the BYC Learning Center for the article on how to break an egg eater for suggestions.

The point about making sure they're amused is a good one, too. I have more egg eating when my chickens are bored inside the hen house due to bad weather, and the best solution there is to give them something to do, like peck at a cabbage on a string. I also make sure to gather eggs as often as I can so there are fewer eggs sitting around to break, and fewer eggs in the boxes to be accidentally broken when a hen is getting in and out of the nest.

 

[buck-buck]

Just a thought, but maybe it’s a matter of “divide and concur”. It sounds like you have (I’m guessing) about 100 birds or so. Is it possible to split them in to groups of say, 25? That way you could use the soapy eggs on a smaller group and let the others eat eggs while you’re training the smaller group. Once the first group is trained, move on to the next and so on (keeping the trained ones away from the 'eaters' of course). It would probably take a month or two to make it through the whole flock but considering it takes about 4-6months for a chick to start producing, it might be worth while giving it a shot. Thats just my 'novice' idea.

 

[tinychicadees]

All of my chickens are egg eater from what I can tell, but we know that if the chickens are getting enough calcium, the shell will not break. So if we have some of our girls eating their eggs, we just give em more calcium.

I keep oyster shell in there coop. So I assume they should not be deficient in calcium. I just found out that when my boyfriend went to get these chickens, he said the guy had golf balls in the coop. I'm wondering if maybe they are accidently knocking them out of the box and maybe they break and then they eat them?