Egg eaters just about ready to be dinner...

[WyoChickenMamma]

Okay, I have caught a few of them "yolk beaked" or red handed whatever you prefer. I put golf balls in the laying boxes...watched them peck at them for a long time and then walk away. Only to find evidence of another eaten egg a while later. I have given them oyster shell and fed their own shells back to them. They all seemed to go for it and I now leave it out for them all the time. I have religiously been down to the coop several times a day to collect eggs and still am only getting at the most 6 eggs a day from a flock of 18. I think I am losing at least 2-4 eggs a day to eaters. So today I filled an egg with mustard and put it in the box. They have left that one alone, but I have still only collected 2 eggs. My one SLW seems to want to hang out in the coop and wait for a hen to get off of a nest....she will be the first one to hit the stock pot. It makes me sad to have to cull so soon. I have had this flock for less than two weeks.

However I am fearful that something a few hens are doing now could turn into a whole flock situation real soon and then what????

So I am in the process of trying to find someone who can butcher and process them for me...I just don't know if I have it in me yet to do it myself...

If anyone else has any other suggestions I would be open to giving them a stay of execution....

Oh, and right now the way their coop is set up I can't convert it to the roll away boxes. But my husband is considering how to modify our coop...but that could be several weeks down the road.

 

[Denninmi]

Quote:
I didn't think I did, either, but it was a lot easier than I thought it would be. Either way, you'll know what is right for you.

I found that completely changing the nest box, only having one, making it very small (mine is about 12 inches square and about 16 inches deep, and mounting it about 3 1/2 to 4 feet off the ground helped a lot -- out of sight, out of mind. And, by having one box with 9 hens, I think they push each other off of it rapidly, not leaving a lot of time to sit there and think "hmmm, that looks tasty".

Good luck.

 

[WyoChickenMamma]

Well that is something I have not thought of...I have 8 boxes in that coop...perhaps I cut 5 out of the equation. It is not uncommon for their to be three at a time in there laying. Thanks for the idea...they might get a few more days of life...