Egg Eaters

Larry in Hawaii

In the Brooder
Mar 27, 2015
63
3
49
Big Island, Hawaii
I brought this up some time ago and try as I can there is no way I can tell which of the 26 hens we have will eat the layed egg...or at least crack and eat the insides before I pick them up. Oh I have caught them, but If I don't check every half hour from morning to mid afternoon they will get a few. Someone told me there might be product egg shaped to put in the nest that when they were bit into would be a bitter taste to train them to stop. For some reason that doesn't sound right. I make sure they have plenty of crushed oystrer shells but it doesn't stop them. What do you folks do?

Larry
 
As far as catching the offender, you could put a camera in there. It's easy to watch the video at high speed with something like VLC media player.

To train it not to eat the egg??? I've found fighting with a semi wild animal's will to be difficult. I'd probably butcher the egg eater. Our hen is free ranged and as soon as her egg is layed, she's out of there and on with her day.
 
Egg eating is sometimes a sign of protein deficiency, I would switch to a higher protein feed, and it can help to keep ceramic eggs in the nestboxes, sometimes pecking at those and not being successful can discourage it. Any eggs that get broken by toenails or rough birds, or during lay will be eaten, so if eggs build up some can get broken and it's normal for those to be eaten. Otherwise others have blown out eggs and replaced the contents with mustard.
 

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