Eggs breaking & cracking and my hens are eating the eggs

[cfish]

I've had my chickens for 2 weeks now, my hens are either cracking or eating the eggs..not sure what to do, calcuim ?

 

[Chick1043]

They're probably egg eaters. Not good! Figure out which on is doing it and separate her from the flock. It could be several of them. It's contagious I guess you could say.

 

[flytie]

In my experience, and from what others have told me, it's either you have to find some way to get her to stop, or off to the butcher she goes.
I have little advice but to say seperate her, or hope you get to collect your eggs fast enough.

 

[redsoxs]

Howdy from Kansas, cfish, and

! Happy you joined our flock! Sorry to hear about your eggs being cracked. One other option is to provide with a laying box designed at a slight angle. When the chicken lay the egg it rolls forward into a covered area safe away from pecking. Hope you can solve the problem. Good luck to you!

 

[drumstick diva]

It's nasty habbit and very contagious meaning the other hens will end up copying her behavior. I don't know if I've ever read of someone actually curing a hen of doing this.

 

[ozarkchicks]

a nest box with a slant is what I've found to work, it hides and protects the egg from the hen,

 

[drumstick diva]

that works IF the hen actually lays them in the nest box, and not in the run or under a bush, or their other hidey holes. They are devious

 

[ozarkchicks]

that's true, for the slanting nest box to work then the hens will have to lay in the nest boxes, luckily I don't have any egg eaters and they lay in their nest boxes

 

[liz9910]

I would go with the nest box that rolls the eggs away from the chicken.

 

[Fentressfarmer]

If your shells are weak you may want to give them some oyster shell. It helps my girls when the shells start getting weak!