If folks will bother to look at the trends in posts, each and every year at the beginning of laying season and during the molt, all the sudden chickens become "egg eaters". Please take note of this trend and the seasons and realize that egg shells are a little dicey when chickens come in and out of lay and this happens each and every year, exactly the same.
Of course the eggs you are collecting have hard shells....that's why they aren't the eggs being eaten. Unless you are there for every egg that is dropped and know without a doubt that the egg that was eaten was perfectly fine in shell strength and integrity, you can't say it wasn't compromised in some way.
Friends with whole flocks that eat eggs aside~sounds like a huge mismanagement problem when the whole flock are eating eggs...never heard of such a thing
egg eating at this time of year is a perfectly normal event, it's natural for them to keep the nests clean in this manner and to eat things that are good when right in front of their own beaks.
No, feeding eggs to your flock will not teach them to eat eggs. Not even feeding them fresh, whole shells will cause them to turn cannibal. No, you don't need to "break" them of eating eggs...wait a couple of weeks and the egg eater will suddenly just disappear into the flock, about the same time reproductive organs are lined out and working like they should and shells stop breaking in the nest when another chicken climbs in on top of them.
If you insist on keeping old hens who consistently have reproductive issues as they age, then your chances of seeing frequent egg eating in your flock will increase, but this still doesn't mean you have an egg eater, it means you should cull your flock for all those not laying well each year. Is she laying fart eggs all the time? Cull. Are her eggs always thin while all the other chickens are laying firm shelled eggs? Cull. Is she always coming in and out of lay because she lays sporadically, so her eggs are abnormal, thin walled, etc.? Cull.
Takes care of a lot of so called egg eating issues. Two weeks wait.... and a yearly cull.
Of course the eggs you are collecting have hard shells....that's why they aren't the eggs being eaten. Unless you are there for every egg that is dropped and know without a doubt that the egg that was eaten was perfectly fine in shell strength and integrity, you can't say it wasn't compromised in some way.
Friends with whole flocks that eat eggs aside~sounds like a huge mismanagement problem when the whole flock are eating eggs...never heard of such a thing
No, feeding eggs to your flock will not teach them to eat eggs. Not even feeding them fresh, whole shells will cause them to turn cannibal. No, you don't need to "break" them of eating eggs...wait a couple of weeks and the egg eater will suddenly just disappear into the flock, about the same time reproductive organs are lined out and working like they should and shells stop breaking in the nest when another chicken climbs in on top of them.
If you insist on keeping old hens who consistently have reproductive issues as they age, then your chances of seeing frequent egg eating in your flock will increase, but this still doesn't mean you have an egg eater, it means you should cull your flock for all those not laying well each year. Is she laying fart eggs all the time? Cull. Are her eggs always thin while all the other chickens are laying firm shelled eggs? Cull. Is she always coming in and out of lay because she lays sporadically, so her eggs are abnormal, thin walled, etc.? Cull.
Takes care of a lot of so called egg eating issues. Two weeks wait.... and a yearly cull.
