egg eater! who dunnit?

[RockyToggRanch]

I have not been getting as many eggs as I should. Now on a couple of different occaisions I have seen 3 eggs in a nest, walked away to finish chores and come back to find 2! Sometimes there's yolk left on the others. Other than that, the missing egg is completely gone.

I was blaming my dog who likes to hang out in the barn with the chickens, but I couldn't believe it was him. He just wouldn't take anything without asking. Then, I noticed three eggs in the goat stall where the dog can't access. Walked by an hour later and there are 2.

There was a chipmonk in the goat stall a week earlier..do they eat eggs?
The goats were out in the field so it wasn't them.
My one and only blue egg layer used to lay 6 eggs a week, but I haven't gotten a single blue egg in weeks.

What is lacking in there diet that makes them eat eggs?

I hope my blue egg layer is not eating my eggs...Should I cage her and see if she's laying and eating her eggs?

what do you all think?

Edit to say...I pick them up as soon as I see them now and put them in my feed room until I go inside.

 

[PeeperKeeper]

A sure bet would have been the dog. But you say he couldn't have possibly gotten into the goat pen.

 

[RockyToggRanch]

No way in the world could he have gotten in there. Besides he is the perfect dog.

 

[MIKE555444]

It sad to have an egg eater... they often have to be culled

 

[RockyToggRanch]

I'll have no problem getting rid of it if I can figure out who it is...that's my problem. Wouldn't it be great if it were one of the cockerals that are going anyway? But I'm afraid it might be my ameracauna girl....

 

[Buck Creek Chickens]

This is a solution a member of the ABA tried :

From the Bantam Mailbox:
Egg Eating Solution – Bob, Connecticut
I had an especially stubborn hen that insisted on eating her eggs as soon as she layed them. I tried all the normal advise like darken the nest box, use of wooden eggs etc. Believe it or not this hen was smart enough to know the difference between a wood egg and her own. I even went so far as to paint the wood eggs to match her egg color. Still nothing worked.
Finally I decided to take an egg from another hen and used a syringe to remove the contents, making a small hole at one end with the needle. I drew out the contents and replaced it with a mixture of the egg yolk and cayenne pepper. I refilled the egg using the syringe and then sealed the hole with a drop of wax. I fully expected her to break the egg when I put it in the pen and I wasn’t disappointed. It took her all of 10 seconds to have it broken and another minute to eat the entire thing. The rooster was also involved. I waited a couple of days and watched her closely in the afternoon waiting for her to lay. She did and promptly broke it and ate it again
I didn’t want to give up as this is a valuable hen from an exceptional line. So I decided to try another mixture. Again I drew out the egg and this time replaced it with a mixture of yellow mustard, Bitter apple (available at pet stores to stop dogs from chewing} and cayenne pepper. Then I sealed the hole with wax and soaked the shell with bitter apple, hopefully making the shell bitter to the taste too. Walking out I figured she would break it quickly and she didn’t disappoint me. But she didn’t eat very much of it and walked around scraping her beak from side to side on the ground. I left the egg for the rest of the day and then removed the rest of it. The next day I put a new “hot” egg in the pen and she paid no attention to it. They have not broken another egg but I left a “hot” egg in the pen for over a week. I think she may have learned her lesson. The next time I have this problem I know exactly what I will do to stop it early.

 

[redhen]

look for any dried egg yolk on their faces....

 

[RockyToggRanch]

Oh my..there are 30 of them and they free range. I'll take a close look at their faces at nite nite time.

Interesting info on hot eggs....maybe worth a try. Although I'd prefer to find the culprit and send him/her packing.