Chickens Eating Their Eggs?

[Silver Silkie]

I have noticed one of my hens eating her eggs after we brought her home. We are currently feeding her a commercial layer feed and she is free to have as much oyster shell as she wants. We also give her some table scraps daily. Does anyone know what is causing this behavior? How do I stop her?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

She found out how good they taste and it's one of the hardest thing to cure.
What do you mean after you brought her home? Did you just get her?
Was she getting the same level of calcium where she came from?
Usually an egg will get broken, sometimes from thin shells, and that's where it starts.
Collect eggs often.
Put fake eggs, golf balls or anything round and hard in the nest.
You can get plastic Easter eggs and fill them with sand or something distasteful.
They usually will teach the others how good they taste.
Often egg eaters need to be culled.

 

[Ravenseye]

It's hard to break egg eaters. As mentioned, pick the eggs up often so that they don't get too much time fussing with them. I once had an Auracana that simply HAD to peck, break and eat every egg it could find. I bought some tan yarn and made a sort of egg shaped lump that I liberally sprinkled hot pepper sauce on. Every time I went out and took a real egg, I replaced it with that one. Sometimes that hen was right there watching me. She was cured of egg eating in about two weeks and judging from the reddish stains on a few other hens I think she had introduced the behavior to the whole flock!