A sitting chicken

[NerdTime1997]

So I've noticed that my chickens have started to sit on their eggs.
Is this normal for chickens to do in cold weather?

Also another concern of mine is that I noticed that a few of my chickens tried to eat one of the eggs that I dropped.
So if my chicken start eating their eggs what should I do to stop that behavior?

 

[Judy]

It is possible that sitting on eggs for a while is the beginnings of broody behavior -- or it could just be where they choose to rest up a bit that day for whatever reason.

I have never seen a chicken who wouldn't eat a broken egg, once it was broken. A broody will also eat an egg she has been sitting on if it breaks, and probably if the chick dies. That is not at all the same as egg eating behavior, in which the chicken actively breaks eggs in order to eat them. Some old time chicken keepers intentionally break any very dirty or damaged eggs onto the coop floor so that the chickens will eat them. These people will telll you it does not lead to a flock becoming egg eaters, which is probably not a very common phenomenon, and generally occurs in older flocks. Possibly these are also flocks whose available nutrition is not the best.