Cracked eggs

[Alethea]

From time to time the chickens dig their nests to the bottom of the box, exposing to the wood. I've been tossing in a little extra straw and not giving it a second thought. Recently an egg had a small crack on the end. I figured it had hit wood, scrambled it and gave it to the chickens. Today there was another with a small crack or hole on the end. Again, I scrambled it and will give it to them this afternoon. I'm going to put a towel in the bottom of the box and add straw and hope that keeps it soft.

I've had a disturbing question come up. Is it possible someone is pecking the eggs? If yes how can we prevent it? These chickens have been good and easy, get along with each other and with us and have not been sick or stressed, other than a little frostbite in December. I'm disturbed at the prospect of someone pecking, then discovering the yummy egg and becoming an egg eater. We are vegetarians and the chickens are pets and culling is out of the question.

 

[Oregon Blues]

I doubt that laying an egg on a board will crack it.

A cracked egg right now at my house would be an egg that froze. If you are someplace that is not freezing, I suspect you've got a chicken that is working her way up to egg eating.

 

[Scooter&Suzie]

If your chickens ARE eating your eggs, you can buy some fake wooden "nesting" eggs. I heard that can help stop the habit. I've never had to deal with it before, so I don't know if that works.

Here is a e-bay link: http://www.ebay.com/itm/BROWN-CERAM...085?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20b7442d75

 

[Alethea]

We are in Oregon, too. The temperature in the coop got below freezing during that cold snap in December, but I don't think it has since. It was about 36 in there today.

You're probably right that the wooden box wouldn't crack an egg. I'm trying the towel just to make sure. If we get another cracked egg with the temperature above freezing, we'll know it's a pecker. Then we'll try the wooden egg.

Thank you all for your help.

 

[BirdMan32]

Same thing here. We've been having small holes in our eggs that didn't penetrate the membrane and just today we had a egg that clearly had been cracked open & eaten. Back to the golf balls in the run/ coop.