Eating their eggs...

[crazychick912]

We let our hens free range. Today when I collected eggs one of the eggs was crushed. I took the others to the house. As I approached my cabin, I saw a hen lay an egg on the path, turn around, poke it and it eat. I then saw one of my older hens starting to poke another egg. This is new behavior. What should I do?

 

[eggbert420]

What are you feeding them? Are they getting enough protein?

 

[crazychick912]

Gosh I didn't think of that...the pellets I bought have 22 protein.

 

[MageofMist]

Also, are they getting enough calcium? Egg eating can also be linked to that, as the 22% protein sounds about right. Have you got a bowl of oyster shell grit for them?

 

[eggbert420]

You could Use a dummy egg to trick the hens that eat eggs and or
Use blinders, debeak, or cull the egg-eating chicken if you cannot break her of this behavior.

 

[crazychick912]

Yes, I mix it with their feed. I also crush egg shells and mix it with cottage cheese or fruit.
Should I separate Sunshine?

 

[crazychick912]

Thank you. I appreciate your help. I will add dummy eggs and remove sunshine from the rest.

 

[Abriana]

You could Use a dummy egg to trick the hens that eat eggs and or
Use blinders, debeak, or cull the egg-eating chicken if you cannot break her of this behavior.

Don't debeak the hens! Debeaking causes chronic pain sometimes for the rest of the hens life. Fill an egg with hot sauce or use ceramic eggs or golf balls, but don't debeak.

 

[MageofMist]

I trim the beaks if they start getting too long which impacts how much they can eat, but I'd never debeak any of my babies. Just like declawing cats, sure it stops the clawing and scratching... But you are mutilating your pet and causing it to suffer by removing it's knuckles.

Hot sauce will have no affect as they don't have the receptors for that type of spice, but mustard on the other hand... Your hen won't be pecking at anymore eggs after getting a nice beakfull of mustard when doing her little egg raid.

 

[DakotaDreamer]

I had a hen who ended up becoming an egg eater after eating the spicy mustard filled egg. The others hated it but I tried everything and only roll away nesting boxes stopped it.