barn cat eating eggs-suggestions?

[Angiebubs]

I have been getting 16-18 eggs per day for awhile now. recently there has been a slow decrease..then suddenly the last two days its dropped in half. I was suspicious that I had a egg eater. But I am now thinking it was the barn cat as I found 2 partial eggs in the box and the edges did not look pecked. Any suggestions how to break this? I have an outside run with bird netting oer it that usually kept the barn cat out. Due to the winter there are areas that have gaps now-I am planning on fixing that this weekend but worried this may not stop her?

 

[welasharon]

How the heck would a cat crack it open? I would look for hidden nests unless you see evidence of egg shells somewhere unless something is hauling them off and eating them. Don't see how a cat could though.

 

[Angiebubs]

When I go to collect eggs at night she runs right up to the nest boxes and had half her body in there. Saw her going after them and smacked her. Tonight there were two half eaten and teh edges were not pecked looking. Doesnt take much to crush the shells

 

[welasharon]

The shells must not be very hard then. Maybe add some calcium to their feed. I add crushed shells back to the feed to improve their calcium and harden up the shells. How many eggs is it eating? I still cannot imagine a cat doing that. How crazy! Could they be getting broke and then it eating them? My dog will sometimes pick the eggs up but the cats never have shown any interest and I have had as many as 10 cats at once. Not sure how you would manage to keep the cat out of the nest unless you catch it and spray it with water when it goes in. My inside cats think that the chickens squirt water...every time they would crouch to attack a bird I sprayed the cat with a water blast.