Broody purposefully break an egg?

[Lucy4]

So my broody Rosie has been setting in the coop/run, separated from my other hens. This morning, one of the eggs had been pushed out of the coop and was broken on the floor of the run. The playhouse coop has a pretty high lip -- she'd have to work to push it up and out out. Most of the contents of the egg were missing, but from what was left, there was definitely a fetus developing.

Sooo... why would she kick it out? And did she eat the contents? Because if so, that's definitely a problem. Maybe she's not getting enough nutrition? Someone suggested hardboiling an egg for her, but she wouldn't eat it. I'm stymied...

 

[ValleyPoultryFarms]

Well, you should consider the possibility of another chicken (more likely a rooster) eating the egg.
Hens DO turn eggs over 90 times a day, so maybe she accidentally waddled her nest over there and tried to turn the egg and it rolled over the lip.

Sorry. Good luck

 

[Life is Good!]

My broody (first ever) has also had an egg break under her - however, there was nothing developing inside of it.
I caught it because she was munching on the eggshell. So I quick made her a scrambled cooked egg and fed that to her - and made sure she had some oyster shell nearby too. She gobbled up the egg, I think she had forgotten to get down off the nest and eat!

 

[Lucy4]

Couldn't have been another chicken -- they're locked out of there in another area.

A friend just told me that if the egg cracked accidentally, that she probably ate the remains instinctively... a broken egg will smell quickly and mama hens want to keep predators away. That makes sense to me.

Still worried about her nutrition. I'll try a scrambled egg later. Which I'll have to buy, because my other hens are on strike ever since I moved them out of there!