Egg Eater!

Chickeng1rl567

Songster
May 26, 2020
55
219
111
Michigan
I have 5 hens and 3 pullets (the pullets are living separately right now). We often find the nesting box covered in crusty dried up egg with other eggs coated in dried egg. Clearly, a chicken is pecking and eating eggs and then leaving a mess. We’ve found egg on some of our hens’ heads and bodies. We observed an episode where one hen found her egg on the roost floor(long story short she is bullied and occasionally she lays one there despite multiple nesting boxes!) and she rolled it out into the main area and pecked it, and then all of the hens including her devoured it. We’ve put fake eggs inside all the nesting boxes to try and stop it, and those haven’t stopped the eating completely but it happens less often. We’ve been trying also to collect eggs quickly and multiple times a day. Despite our efforts, yesterday yet another egg was eaten. It’s a hard habit to break in hens. Any advice on how to stop this?
 
Usually once egg eating starts it can be difficult to stop. Sometimes it can be from a protein deficiency. You can try feeding something higher in protein, 18-22%. Either a non medicated starter grower or an All Flock ration with a separate bowl of oyster shells for the calcium needs.

There's also roll away nests you can build or buy. Nestboxes in general should be around 3 feet off the ground to keep curious birds from easily seeing eggs. Curtains can help sometimes too.

Ground laid eggs often can get eaten. When they go into your nestboxes to seek out eggs is when you really have a problem. It's a hard habit to break.
 

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