Ceramic eggs under attack

mdbokc

Songster
10 Years
Jun 22, 2009
1,032
32
151
Oklahoma County, OK
We keep a ceramic egg in most nests at all times for the occasional snake that gets in. Typically, end of that problem.

However, we just lost a couple of ceramic eggs over a couple of days with a smaller egg count as well. I figured another snake or two got them. When adding new eggs, I noticed one of the remaining ceramic eggs has definite bite marks on it. Actually punctured the ceramic egg at one point. Several nicks also indicate biting attempts. So the questions are 1) can a snake leave bite marks on a ceramic egg? 2) If not, what would do this during daytime hours but not bother the chickens themselves? I have never seen this before and am perplexed. Sort of wondering what kind of potential adversary we may be facing....
 
Well I don't know what kind of animal would be making bite marks, but snakes have very small teeth or none at all. A snake with venom would only leave two tooth marks from fangs, although one without would probably leave very many small pricks if it could puncture the ceramic. Snakes normally swallow things whole if they intend to eat them though, so something that bit the egg and left it is probably not a snake. You should look how the animal could get in at the egg, obviously if it got through a small hole then the animal has to be fairly small, which would also fit the description of something that isn't injuring the chickens.
 
We keep a ceramic egg in most nests at all times for the occasional snake that gets in. Typically, end of that problem.

However, we just lost a couple of ceramic eggs over a couple of days with a smaller egg count as well. I figured another snake or two got them. When adding new eggs, I noticed one of the remaining ceramic eggs has definite bite marks on it. Actually punctured the ceramic egg at one point. Several nicks also indicate biting attempts. So the questions are 1) can a snake leave bite marks on a ceramic egg? 2) If not, what would do this during daytime hours but not bother the chickens themselves? I have never seen this before and am perplexed. Sort of wondering what kind of potential adversary we may be facing....
could be a crow they use to put poison eggs out for crows in an endangerd turtle area but they put up small tray (so eggs do not roll off) on a tall pole or post. you also might get some expanding foam sold at lowes or home depot and put in the cracks and Crevice's I just black out light in daytime and can spot these small entrances.
 
Well, it is Ft Knox at night. During the day, the human door is open so anything can get in. And that is when this is occurring. Since crow seems to be a potential culprit (I know other birds have flown in during the day on rare occasion), I'll close the human door and the pop door will become the norm for entry and exit. We'll see what happens. Appreciate everyone's look at this.
 
We put out two ceramic eggs today and with in 90 minutes both were outside the coop and broken in to several pieces. 4:30 pm ish. No dogs no coons no snakes / it was the hens or the rooster
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom