EGG CANABALIZING HEN? solution please?

[JAHVREM]

i have a beautiful partridge silkie hen, approx 1 1/2 yrs old. she has set several groups of eggs, and successfully hatched, but the last time she resumed laying, she would eat each egg as soon as she was finished laying.

i have tried to drain an egg, and fill with hot sauce.

does not even phase her.

any suggestions? she is great quality, and i would really like some chicks!!

 

[Oregon Blues]

Since birds lack the sensors that detect picante, and they can eat dried chili peppers, I can understand why hot sauce wouldn't work.

My cure for egg eating is the soup pot before she teaches it to the rest of the flock.

 

[Oregon Blues]

If it is really important that you hatch her chicks, pen her in a small pen with one of those roll-out egg traps so she can't reach the egg.

I don't think that egg eating is an inherited trait, so if you keep the chicks away from her and other egg eaters, they should be OK.

 

[pek]

you can try giving her extra food she may just be hungry or lacking nutrition. if you use eggs in the kitchen, you can give her the shells. that may stop her eating her own eggs or may make her eat more of them, but you can try.

 

[seminolewind]

I vote for the roll out egg trap. Or try golf balls.

 

[jm93030]

Once a hen gets the taste of raw eggs , is very hard to get them out of tha bad habit.

try to relocate the nest ..this works sometimes

let her run free in the backyard if she is in a pen

also you can change her into a diferent coop with other hens.

the key here is to change her normal enviroment.

 

[Beekissed]

She has previously never ate her eggs....so what is different for her right now? Is she molting heavily? Could her egg shells be very thin because of the calcium needs of feather growing? If her eggs are thin shelled and they are breaking when she lays them, it is only natural for her to eat them. Any chicken will eat a broken, leaking egg....this does NOT make them an "egg-eater", by definition.

I'd just increase protein in the feed and actually place OS in the feed ration and wait awhile...things have a way of working out, given time.