Chicken Moving Egg?

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SandyCWV

SandyCWV

Hatching
6 Years
Apr 23, 2013
6
2
9
West Virginia
Yesterday we had a bunch of people over and I took a guest down to see the chickens. Lying in the middle of the floor was an egg that looked like it had been kicked out of the nest box. It looked dirty and maybe even dented, but was in a saw dust pile so maybe not. One of the girls was in a nest box so we left the egg laying there.
An hour or so later I went back with some kids to pick up the eggs and it wasn't on the floor anymore. In the nest box were three eggs and one of them seemed to be the same dirty egg. The others were the normal clean looking.
I guess it is possible that a hen moved it, but Wow! The nest boxes are slightly higher than a 5 gallon bucket from the floor. Has anyone had this happen? I know the chickens can roll them around, but to pick it up and jump up to the nest like that? Maybe it didn't happen, but it sure seems to be what happened.
 
Maybe the other hens ate the egg on the floor and it just happened that there was another dirty egg in the nest box. I don't think that I've ever heard of a chicken carrying an egg before.
tongue.png
 
At one point I used 5 gallon buckets as nest boxes. I placed them upright, filled them halfway with stones to keep them stable and put a thick layer of dried grass over the stones, filling it to about 2/3's, some lower. I've had hens move the "decoy" eggs I left in the buckets for them from one bucket to another all the time. Someone who'd actually seen this happen, told us her hens pick up the egg and holds it under their "chins" with their beaks, while they move from one spot to another. Clever, hey?
 
I don't think they outright carry egg, rather drag, at least is what I have witnessed. If carrying thought to be going on then put another egg out and film it. I have seen some weird stuff so maybe you do have it.
 
More than one of my hens will carry eggs tucked in their bosom under their "chins" - I have seen them do it. Now, these were big fluffy hens, not the skinnier layer breeds like leghorns, so they had ample bosoms for the egg tuck....

One Buff Orp manages to accomplish this trick regularly, even carrying an egg over a three inch front lip of a nest box to another. She steals other hens' eggs whenever she goes broody. I do have an old photograph of her doing the tuck & carry maneuver, but no video proof for the nay-sayers. ;). I'll see if I can find it - I have shared it in other posts about hens carrying eggs.

One of my lavender Orps moved a "stray" duck egg left on the floor of the coop all the way over to her nest, but she broods under a bench in a nest she made in the shavings there. She is now raising a chick and a duckling together.
 
gryeyes said:
More than one of my hens will carry eggs tucked in their bosom under their "chins" - I have seen them do it. Now, these were big fluffy hens, not the skinnier layer breeds like leghorns, so they had ample bosoms for the egg tuck....

One Buff Orp manages to accomplish this trick regularly, even carrying an egg over a three inch front lip of a nest box to another. She steals other hens' eggs whenever she goes broody. I do have an old photograph of her doing the tuck & carry maneuver, but no video proof for the nay-sayers.
wink.png
. I'll see if I can find it - I have shared it in other posts about hens carrying eggs.

One of my lavender Orps moved a "stray" duck egg left on the floor of the coop all the way over to her nest, but she broods under a bench in a nest she made in the shavings there. She is now raising a chick and a duckling together.
Click to expand...
Interesting, I've never seen my buff orpington do that before.
 

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