Does anyone have a solution to egg eating?

[pippsqueak]

I went out to put the girls away tonight and found one brown egg from my RIR and a smashed Blue from my Ameraucana and my littlest Ameraucana (who isn't laying yet) jumped up there to eat what was left of the egg. The brown egg was intact but, the blue was a pile of goo. How can you break them from eating them? I normally am quick about getting out there to collect but, I got home too late today.

 

[nanawendy]

I had a bit of an issue a couple of years ago and learned from BYCers to
1) collect often
2) put wooden eggs or golf balls in their place
when they got to peck @ the egg it's hard and NOT yummy
good luck and

 

[pippsqueak]

I have had the golf balls in there since Sunday and this is the first egg that they have eaten. I'm wondering if it broke before and then she ate it. I'm just worried that she will pick up a bad habit. I'm trying to fix the fact that they are cracking every time they lay one right now. Hopefully, when that happens the egg eating might too. Any other solutions would be appreciated?

 

[CapricornFarm]

I have heard of putting an egg in there with horseradish or hot sauce inside. Or build nest boxes where the eggs roll into a compartment they can't get to.

 

[yinepu]

Quote:
do you have enough bedding in the nest boxes?.. cause it sounds like when they go to lay the egg it's dropping down and cracking due to the fall.. no padding underneath would result in cracked eggs
Also.. are the eggs really thin shelled?.. if so you may want to make sure the girls have extra calcium available

as far as stopping an egg eater.. some people will take an egg..blow out the contents.. fill it with mustard and seal the ends with wax.. when the offending bird breaks open the egg they get a beak full of mustard

we always just found out what bird did the egg eating and introduced them to the stew pot

 

[Delmar]

Quote:
That sounds pretty effective.

 

[huey king of kingpin]

maybe they need calcium i give my chickens shells

 

[wingsofglory]

I've been through this with three different flocks.

When the egg becomes food to them, I found no way to change their minds. Mustard/hot sauce didn't work for me either.

Do a search on BYC for "Opa's roll out nestboxes". He has photos and plans for building roll out nests out of plywood. Work slick! He also has his experience posted on how much slope to make the egg roll out of sight, how wide to make the shelf to hide the egg on so they can't reach it under the curtain, what to make the curtain out of, what to put on the floor of the nest, to paint the inside of the box very dark color, etc.

I also went through the eggs cracking on being laid. Some of my hens stood up to lay the egg! Long fall. I favor the Easter Eggers for their extra tough eggs, although I like an egg basket of different colors.

Feeding them back their crushed egg shells seems to be a better source of calcium than oyster shell. I mixed the crushed egg shells in wet mash or scrambled eggs for them. It helps make thicker shells.

Good luck.

 

[Delmar]

I used to run my egg shells through a coffee grinder, but now I just put them in a gallon zip lock bag and crush them. It's very quick and easy. I haven't had any problem with egg eaters so far.

 

[nanawendy]

If this was the first eaten egg ...then It probably was a soft shell or stepped on egg. My girls had one of the when I happened to be watching them... and it looked like they had straws it went so fast