Egg eater?

[MadisonOde]

Hey all,
I recently added three new birds to my flock, and one of the eggs today had a hole in it. Is this egg eating or did someone step on it? I’ve also had another egg in there in the nesting box to show them where to lay and that one hasn’t been broken. Thoughts?

 

[rosemarythyme]

Is the shell on the damaged egg thin? Does look to be pecked at but it's hard to say if you have a real problem yet.

 

[MadisonOde]

Is the shell on the damaged egg thin? Does look to be pecked at but it's hard to say if you have a real problem yet.

It was maybe a little thin, but not super noticeable.

 

[Rick M]

I have a pecker head that does the same thing. I have one hen that almost always peck's a hole in a egg, almost never busts the membrane inside so I just use that egg first. We have golfballs and ceramic eggs in all nest boxes but the one pecker head wont stop.

 

[ChickNanny13]

Looks to be pecked but not eaten so that's good.
Are they new layers? What are you feeding? Do you have Oyster Shells on the side?

 

[MadisonOde]

She is a new ish layer, they are all on layer right now but I have oyster shell if I need to supply more.

 

[ChickNanny13]

I would set out a separate dish of Oyster Shells, they'll eat it if needed. Is this the first time this happened? Could have been an oops.

Sometimes egg eating/feather picking is due to layers needing more protein. I never experienced the problem but did have a issue of feather eating. Read an article about layers needing more protein than layer feed provides. Made sense to me so I switched (3yrs ago) to Flock Raiser with Oyster Shells in a separte dish ... feather picking stopped and never had issues with the shells.

It was explained that it takes alot out of the layer to process and lay that egg, the egg itself is protein. So it made sense to me ... For extra protein some feed scrambled eggs, BOSS, MW and tofu. Yup Tofu ... didn't think they'd eat it but they loved it.

 

[aart]

Looks thin to me.....may have broken when it 'dropped'.
I wouldn't fret yet.