After reading some of the stories here I have been taking a proactive approach to egg eating in my small flock. As they finally approach laying age I have placed golf balls around the hen house for ALL the birds to see. Their first reaction was to peck at them as they seem to think everything is a TREAT. Very soon they have figured out the nice round while balls are not food. The idea is that I hope they think the same of the eggs. Do you think this might deter any of the potential egg eater in the flock from considering egg eating when they actually, finally, SOMEDAY start to lay eggs? (you may have seen a small amount of impatience in that last statement hehe)
The only thing would be is when they do start laying and somehow an egg gets broken, and trust me at some point one will. They will peck at it and taste that yummy goodness inside. This happened to be about 2 weeks ago. I was collecting eggs and I dropped one on the ground. One of my girls was right there and of course started eatting it, then here come all the others. But I grabbed it up real fast and covered what was left on the ground in chicken poo. That stopped them real fast. Even though they got a taste of the eggs, I havent had a problem yet with them trying to eat them.
Here is a article I just found on backyardpoultry about preventing this. Hope this helps you some. http://www.backyardpoultrymag.com/issues/4/4-4/preventing_egg_eating.html
I have golf balls in all of my nests, 2 in a couple. They've had a taste from the occasional accident, but I don't think they think of them as food. It seems to work well for me. I don't have mine painted or anything- one's pink and one's blue- the rest are white, and my birds are brown laying (until these EEs get their butts in gear!! Your frustration is shared...) I left them after my older birds began to lay, thinking if they pecked they'd find it unpleasant...and if 90% of the pecks end up that way, what's the point? So they stay.
My birds have eaten eggs that have broken, but so far I have never had a bird break an egg open and eat it. I also have golf balls in their nest boxes. Some people use fake eggs.