Chickens eating eggs....

[bamitsbrittany]

I have a flock of 9 chickens... 5 of them are of age to lay and have laid for a while then quit. One is a rooster and the other 3 are younger not ready to lay yet. I was having 2 eggs a day then none then one a day... but all from different chickens (I can tell because I have all different breeds and all different color eggs). They do free range during the day in the back yard and I have searched the back yard EXTREMELY well and found no eggs hiding. I have watched them lay eggs in the coop. I go out multiple times a day to check. I found a cracked egg and got it out immediately. Then the next day I found pieces of an egg broken with yoke all over....went to get stuff to clean it out and when I came back it was gone... this lead me to think that maybe my chickens are laying and someone is eating them... Idk who is eating them and I don't know what to do. HELP!!!

 

[ChickenLover200]

If your chickens are eating their eggs they might have a lack of calcium and nutrition... what i did to stop ours from eating eggs is first put wooden eggs all through nest boxes.. you can get those at hatcheries or cheaper at a craft store in your area.. i also after we ate eggs is saved the shells microwave them and crumble them into little pieces then mixed those with the layer crumbles in their house.. if it is another animal maybe look through and look for traces of footprints or tiny spaces where other animals could get in... hope that helps

 

[bamitsbrittany]

Thank you for your response! I actually crumble up dried egg shells and they are on layer pellets and scratch and they get fresh fruit/veggies everyday. So I don't think they are missing anything in their diet... I did read about false eggs in the nests... I have put 2 golf balls in there yesterday. Maybe that will work... no eggs yet today though.

 

[ChickenLover200]

have you added any new chickens to the flock lately? that can throw them off and they won't lay and sometimes can cause egg eating... golf balls work too it will take some time though if that is going to work

 

[bamitsbrittany]

I added 2 new chickens to the flock about a month ago now... one that I added was laying for a week and then quit too...so if this is what caused egg eating... how do I stop it! lol

 

[ChickenLover200]

I'll let some other people post too so they can in put on the discussion too.... I just got chickens last year so.. i don't know that much