egg-eater! what to do?

[linguafranka]

she has been caught red-handed 1x eating eggs a few days ago. today we found an empty broken shell, but no witnesses to the culprit.

i figure the ultimate step is just to "harvest" the bird we saw eating an egg for the stew-pot, but it seems like there should be some step in between. and i'm not sure if she is the only one doing it!

my first idea is to separate her into the quarantine pen until she lays an egg. if she DOES eat it, game over for her. if he DOESN'T eat it, and we haven't identified any other suspect, then i don't know what my next step should be. any words of wisdom?

these are our first flock (5 about 5 mos old, 2 about 18mos) & they just started laying last month. we don't want to kill her, but we sure don't want them to all learn this behavior either! however, this particular bird has been kind of a bully lately & my kind feelings for her are thinner than they used to be. we "inherited" the 2 older chickens (18 mos) a few weeks ago, which upset our former peaceful pecking order, and this one hen has been one of the most aggressive (not the only one, just the most consistently agro) since that upset. things have smoothed out some, but it's definitely not all back to everybody being friends. maybe if she needs to go, it is just as well...

 

[GoldenSparrow]

do you supply oyster shells, she could be eating the eggs because she needs more calcium...

you can stop it. get an egg make a small hole, empty it. fill it with mustard.
Good luck.
please dont eat her.
I have had this problem and it always goes a way.

 

[linguafranka]

I've been sprinkling smashed eggshells on their food once or twice a week. Is that insufficient?
Their eggs have really strong thick shells.

Will try the mustard thing.

I'm really worried that she will teach all the others this behavior - is that a real danger?

 

[linguafranka]

I just thought of this too - she is eating the eggs & leaving the shell behind. So, I dont know if calcium is the thing she is after.

 

[VCspeckledhens]

It might be because who ever had her before fed her raw eggs when she was a chick.She might just be starving so she resorts to eating eggs

 

[dainerra]

it could be that the egg was just broken and they ate it. try the mustard trick and see if it helps.

 

[NYREDS]

I only know one way to cure egg eating & it involves chicken soup.

 

[linguafranka]

there have been numerous broken eggs lately... all of a sudden...

i put her in a cage by herself. i think we will keep her there until we can see if she lays/eats, or any other eggs get eaten even with her locked up. i feel bad, she obviously doesnt like it in there. maybe she will be nicer when we let her back in...

 

[linguafranka]

we have raised her from a chick, and she's got lots of food. :-(

 

[linguafranka]

the good news: 1 day with the suspect in isolation, and we found our egg-eater

the bad news: ALL the chickens are doing it!
we baited an egg by filling a shell with dyed mustard
all the girls had color on their faces! caught red-beaked.

so, the one i put in isolation was unfairly singled out & had to spend the night in jail (sorry!), and now we have to do the mustard-filled-untasty-egg thing a few times and hope for the best

sigh!