- Sep 22, 2008
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For a few weeks now, when I have gone to collect eggs from the laying box, I have been finding eggs with holes broken into them, with most of the contents of the broken eggs still present inside (that is mostly uneaten).
The size of the holes is typically the size of a quarter (but not circular like a quarter), and sometimes bigger.
The laying box is accessible to potential egg predators (principally squirrels, wild birds, cats), as my birds are out to range free during the daytime.
Even though I do feed egg shells (from the kitchen) to my hens, which my hens eat voraciously and completely, nevertheless I'm not suspecting one of the hens yet because I also find the shell fragments in the nesting box next to the broken eggs. I'm thinking that if one of the hens were indeed breaking the eggs, then its principal goal would be to eat the shells (which my hens love to eat) and no shell fragments would remain in the nesting box as they in fact do. By the way, in the past I have fed (empty) half-shells to my hens - but since the trouble started I've been breaking the shells into fragments before feeding them to the hens.
By the way - for completeness:
More often than not there are only two eggs in the laying box per day (from my three hens), whereas sometimes there are three. I know one of the hens used to lay in (hard to find) places in the undergrowth under hedgerows. I write that here because several months ago now I found a broken egg on the roof of my car in the street outside the fence and on the opposite side of my house to the side where my birds are.
My question to experienced keepers is: Does this pattern of egg breakage (which I described at the beginning of this posting) suggest any particular type of egg predator?
The size of the holes is typically the size of a quarter (but not circular like a quarter), and sometimes bigger.
The laying box is accessible to potential egg predators (principally squirrels, wild birds, cats), as my birds are out to range free during the daytime.
Even though I do feed egg shells (from the kitchen) to my hens, which my hens eat voraciously and completely, nevertheless I'm not suspecting one of the hens yet because I also find the shell fragments in the nesting box next to the broken eggs. I'm thinking that if one of the hens were indeed breaking the eggs, then its principal goal would be to eat the shells (which my hens love to eat) and no shell fragments would remain in the nesting box as they in fact do. By the way, in the past I have fed (empty) half-shells to my hens - but since the trouble started I've been breaking the shells into fragments before feeding them to the hens.
By the way - for completeness:
More often than not there are only two eggs in the laying box per day (from my three hens), whereas sometimes there are three. I know one of the hens used to lay in (hard to find) places in the undergrowth under hedgerows. I write that here because several months ago now I found a broken egg on the roof of my car in the street outside the fence and on the opposite side of my house to the side where my birds are.
My question to experienced keepers is: Does this pattern of egg breakage (which I described at the beginning of this posting) suggest any particular type of egg predator?