eating eggs

[son-n-lawschicks]

I have two white rock hens that were laying an egg each. Lately I've been getting 0. Today i caught one of them finishing up an egg shell. I seperated them to different pens to see if they are both eating them. What can I do to stop this or can it be stopped? I want to hatch some of there eggs.

 

[ghulst]

It is tough to stop. Try putting the nest boxs up higher.

 

[seminolewind]

I solved my problem with golf balls. A few in each nest, and a few here and there in the coop.

 

[katrinag]

Once they start it is hard to stop. You can use golf balls, wooden eggs, ceramic eggs. The idea is that they will peck them and get nowhere and in turn give up. Not to mention it has to hurt just a bit too. I

f you can not get them to stop I would cull them. They can and will teach the other to eat eggs.

 

[FRENZY]

I too saw one of my hens eating an egg,
so I blew the yolk out of a egg and filled
it with mustard and hot sauce and
put it back in the nest.
twenty min later she went for it.
within seconds she jumped out of
the nest and ran around the coop.
I havent had any problems since then.
I had read about this in a book on
raising chickens. tho it only said to
use mustard.

 

[Pinky]

Quote:
That's what I had to do to cure one of my hens from eating eggs.But I used mustard though.

 

[grullablue]

I couldn't break the habit with my leghorns, and ended up letting them go. Wasn't easy to do.... but we weren't getting any eggs. I dealt with the habit for a very long time. The only way I'd get an egg was to stand there while it was being layed and grab it right away.

Covering the nest boxes (as was one of the suggestions here) helped for several days, but they got smart after awhile...went back to eating eggs in the covered nest boxes even. The golf balls and fake eggs didn't work here...

Good luck, hopefully you can stop it!
Angie

 

[jvls1942]

Quote:
mustard might work, but chickens love hot sauce and pepper..

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

Do a search on egg eating, you will find many many posts on it, and lots of good suggestions. Some work for one person but not another.

i adopted some hens once, the owners said they weren't laying much, probably due to the cold weather. Well, they laid fine. But they all gathered around the hen that was laying and pounced on the egg the second it hit the box. It was a little creepy. They were like vultures. i even stood there once, ready to snag the egg the minute it was laid. i had to fight off five crazy hens (even the one that just laid) frantic to get that egg first.

i tried blowing and filling the eggs with mustard, hot mustard, wasabi; covered the nest boxes to keep them dark, used wooden eggs. Nothing worked for me except getting rid of them. i could never merge them into my existing flock and have everyone eating the eggs.

Good luck. Hopefully you have caught this problem early and some of the great suggestions here will help.

 

[seminolewind]

Some people make those nests that slant in the back so the egg rolls back and falls down into a pocket or something. You may want to check that out.