Chicken egg protection device-so the girls will not eat them

[Mickie333]

My girls are laying eggs regularly but one accidently broke one day & so now they want to eat them as soon as they are laid

Any suggestions on a design that will drop from their nesting box underneath them & roll to a safe non eatable area?

Thanks so much & Many Blessings. BTW we have 3 cutie pie girls & will try to post pics another time.

 

[bigzio]

mickie, another option is to cover the front of the nests with a cloth or fabric....simply hang and cut entrance slits to darken the nests and keep the flock from seeing the eggs. Birds won't eat eggs they can't see. The flock will enter the slits and continue to lay.
~ bigzio

 

[Yay Chicks!]

I don't know why some do this. Mine ate a broken one once, but then never tried to ate a whole one after that. There is a thread on here somewhere that talks about feeding BOSS to correct egg eating behavior. It may be the Omega 6 (I believe) that are in both the seeds and eggs that they are looking to supplement.

 

[ChickieBooBoo]

Mine go nuts if one if ever broken, but never break them themselves...

 

[Judy]

You can build rollaway nest boxes. The eggs roll to the back and out of reach. Slanted bottom and partition at the back, open at the bottom to let an egg through. There are threads on them here somewhere. You can use that robbery shelf lining instead of nesting material, or scraps of carpet.

 

[patandchickens]

You can try building a rollaway nestbox but reports on BYC are varied as to how well they work for people.

Egg eating is often a symptom of protein and/or calcium deficiency. So, have you tried adding additional high-quality protein to the chickens' diets, and ALSO making sure their container of free-choice calcium supplement (in this case, it might be best to use crushed oystershell rather than crushed eggshell, although I still have yet to hear of any case where feeding crushed baked eggshells clearly encouraged egg-eating).

Some people have also had success by blowing an egg and refilling it with something nasty like mustard or bitter-apple.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat