Blue Jays eating my eggs in coop

[BM chicks]

Any other ideas besides pellet guns? Neighbors yard with young children close. I have a doggy door with heavy rubber flaps. (Can seal closed at night.) If I lock out the blue jay, I am also locking out the hens.

 

[Rickba]

Put up some Blur Jay suet cakes for the Blue Jays to feed on.

 

[RonP]

I find that when you feed wildlife, they become dependent on the food source, prosper, and multiply.

If the supplied food supply ever ends, there will be cruel and unnecessary suffering among that community.

Blue Jays are fairly intelligent birds. Now that some know a reliable food source, they will continue to raid, and inherently teach others.

Had a similar situation with a few squirrels that learned where the chicken feeder was located, inside my chicken coop.

I still have many, many squirrels, but unfortunately, the pilfering did not end until I eliminated the ones who entered my coop.

You need to find a better way to keep them out, or purge the ones who enter, preferably humanly, until the thieves stop.

Perhaps you can fashion lighter flaps for daylight hours, or create a “tunnel” for the chickens to enter that would daunt the timid jays.

 

[Naser]

If you use black landscape fabric to create a curtain in a way the hens have to go through the curtain to get into the nesting area that will stop corvus species getting in "they can't afford to go into a place if they can't see what is coming in their back, but you have to eliminate the ones who tasted the eggs, those ones will go in regardless, but even if they do, if they can't see their back it could be a death trap for them as they can't see you coming to get them "that depends on the design of your coop".

 

[Rickba]

I hang bird feeders all winter with wild bird seed and suit feeders, and I put out humming bird feeders in the summer and take up the wild bird food. Always have. I have never had an issue with dependence on my food supply. An occasional bear will treat himself to the suit, but up here in the mountains, that's just part of living here.

 

[Chickassan]

Roll away nest box is your best friend when your eggs are being taken. If nothing can see the eggs nothing gets the eggs.