Went out today and found a broken and eaten egg in the nest. Is there any way to keep them from doing this in the future. This is the first time this has happened. Thanks
I'm not sure the procedures of getting them to quit, but I have skimmed over a few posts with a similar problem. Mine haven't done this yet, but sometimes I will throw an egg in the air and they have great fun chasing it down and consuming it when it lands and breaks. (If this is wrong to do, tell me...I don't ever want to harm them). At first thought, I would consider maybe some oyster shell or extra calcium supplement in case there is a deficiency? I wish I could be of more help.
You don't want to feed raw eggs to chickens! It encourages egg eating. Search egg eaters using the search link. You will find a lot of info. Also look in the FAQ section. A big part of breaking egg eating is collecting eggs real frequent. Good luck!!!!!
My chickens got in the egg eating habit. I did several things to stop them. 1. I separated the one that broke the most eggs from the flock. 2. I cut the treats out totally for awhile so they would eat more laying feed. 3. I collected eggs very often so they did not have a chance to eat them. 4. Placed golfballs in the nest boxes. They would give up trying to bust it after awhile. After I broke everyone from the habit i was able to put the egg eating leader back in. I agree with farmer kitty 100% never feed raw eggs to chickens. When they discover they like the taste of yolk they are hard to stop. Mine started egg eating because my wife threw what she considered cull eggs down to break them for the chickens.
My Alice II just started doing this (post below). I have been collecting the eggs frequently, but I also put several wooden nest eggs out. She spent the first day pounding like mad on those fake eggs, only to get thoroughly discouraged. Today I didn't have a single egg lost! Yay!