Egg Eating Chicken and I am out of ideas

[Tony A]

Hello All. I have a Delaware chicken to which I discovered is the culprit of constant egg eating. She waits outside the nesting box and eats the egg faster than I can stop it. I am not one to put down an animal, so I have tried all I have heard of...curtains on nesting boxes; checking often to take out eggs; fake eggs; golf balls; a clean coop; cod liver oil or mustard in egg shells; lots of treats for the girls; and a large run. I cannot use the nesting boxes that have the eggs roll out to a safe holding area due to how we constructed the coop.

I have been removing her from the coop every day leaving her outside to which is ok for now, but winter is coming. She has been out for two weeks, and I tried leaving her in yesterday but she immediately was back into her old routine of stalking the nesting boxes when another chicken was in them and got to an egg before me.

Is there anything else someone can think of for me to try?

I had this problem and tried many different things, the only thing that worked was heating a knife and melt the tip of the beak, just enough to take away the point. It worked very well and I had no problem after. Best of luck with her.
Tony.

 

[amyandkids]

how do you know there is an egg eater? is there shell pieces left and sticky bedding? just asking because I have a coop of jersey giant girls white rock and r.i.r. girls, they are almost a year old and I got 4 eggs a couple months ago, THEN NOTHING! Is it possible they are eating them and not leaving a trace of what they have done?

 

[beckbeck]

I had the same problem, I did increase he oyster shell. but I also read to poke a hole in both end of an egg, blow egg out. I took a sandwich bag, put mustard in it and fill egg, it kinda worked, but then I did it a second time with mustard and a lot of hot sauce, the hen that started the egg eating stopped and the other two also.

 

[Carolinacountry]

We have a egg eater now.. she is in a separate pen until we go to the sale. That or you can give her away.
Our girls are pets also but when she learned to stand up and lay her eggs so when it hits it breaks others... and then has a feast. She is gone.. really hard to stop an egg eater that has been doing it a while. Good luck

 

[Fentress]

I would suggest learing how to cull. It's part of animal husbandry and there will be other situations that come up that will require you to put a chicken down.

 

[LakeMomNY]

I can't help.

We started out this laying hen project with the idea that we would not eat any, but have quickly moved on. We have a hen who is so mean that the children started praying she would be a rooster so that we would have to eat her. She isn't. They have all decided that we should (please!) eat her anyway.

The fact of the matter is, we eat meat (you may not). This chicken isn't working out as a laying hen and would be of more value to us as food.

Of course, this is exactly what you indicated you weren't interested in doing, so feel free to tell me to zip it. ;-)

 

[mak1]

Just take pliers and at the tip of her beak cut the sharp thing of. Her nose is then dull and she cant peck

 

[CelticGoose]

i think that maybe exactly what happened. my hen Dixie was laying one every day and doing awesome and then just STOPPED! and the more i looked the more i found evidence. finally one day i came home and her beak was covered in yoke. now Dixie lives somewhere they don't care about eggs, just bug control.

 

[frugal farmer]

Mak1 is correct. Clip their beaks. I like getting older hens already laying full sized eggs from people that know the end is coming. I clip every beak that comes in. With my work schedule the eggs get checked once a day and no more broken eggs after I figured out how to clip them. I use dog nail clippers

 

[Aliciahess]

Clipping rhe beak doesn't hurt them....or is it like finger nail?