Egg eating chickens! Help!

[millie481]

Quote:
you should cook the eggs you feed back to the chickens. add the crushed shells and oyster shell to their feed to make sure they are getting the extra calcium.

 

[jackrooster]

my RIR hen just started doing this! its driving me nuts! some one told me it mean there not getting enough kelsum and to feed them oyster shells but i havent tryed it yet so i dont know if it would work......just a thought

 

[jeremy]

Quote:
Ceramic eggs worked for me! I have 14 hens and was only getting 3-4 eggs a day a couple of weeks ago.

I placed 4 ceramic eggs inside their nesting boxes and for some reason it stopped the egg eating. I'm getting about 10-12 eggs daily now. Hopefully it will continue to work and eliminate the problem entirely.

 

[underground chickenman]

A lot of people will say that egg eating is an almost impossible habit to break, and that is probably true, IF it is a habit. After I bought a new feed recently (I was nearly out and was passing a feed store I had never purchased from before that was more convenient at the moment than my regular store), my hens started eating eggs and picking feathers. I got one or two eggs a week from six hens, but plenty of yellow wet spots in the litter in the nest boxes. They would pop one out and turn on it immediately. After a few weeks, I thought I had put two and two together and put them on a good quality starter ration and free choice oyster shell. I also threw a couple hands full of black oil sun flowers seeds once per day. Almost immediately, the egg eating and feather picking stopped. I am now back to 5-6 eggs per day from six hens.

It may not work for everyone, since egg eating can just be a nasty habit, but fortunately, in my case, it was clearly a nutritional deficiency.

Good luck and be sure to let us know if you correct this behavior and how.

UGCM

 

[alpinefarm]

I listened to a farm radio program about this topic recently.
The tips presented were:

1) Make sure hens have plenty of fresh water. Eggs are 65% water. If you have water bowls that are freezing up or, as some do, are relying on snow to satisfy them in the winter, they can easily get dehydrated and hens will often turn to breaking eggs for moisture.

2) Plenty of comfy, soft, private nest boxes, so that they aren't breaking eggs in the process of laying them, either due to hard boxes or bickering over the best spot.

3) Up protein for sure...raw hamburger or ground turkey or fish meal are great "uppers" in the winter time, when their need for protein and fat is greatest.

4) Up calcium with oyster shell and/or yoghurt, etc.

5) Isolate the culprit(s) if at all possible for a while, as this may change their pecking order.

6) Add fake eggs to the nest.

7) Beaks can be trimmed or filed, just the pointy 1/4", to make it more difficult for them to crack the egg. (I've never done this and am not sure I'm comfortable with it, but that's what they said.)

 

[fiberart57]

I'm with the group that believes in increasing the protein of their food. It's been a hard winter and the chickens have used up reserves just getting through it and now we expect them to start laying.

I feed a 20% protein feed and supplement with hamburger once a week now, but when it was cold I'd give it to them every two or three days. In addition, they get an occasional handful of cat food. The cat food is very sparing because of the salt content. I'd rather give them a bit of hamburger.

Try increasing their protein content either with additions or by getting a higher protein content food. FlockRaiser is 20% and there's a game bird out there at 27%.

Good luck, Mary

 

[kelidei]

Having the same problem! I put some nest pads under the pine shavings because I think they started when eggs cracked due to the girls scratching out the shavings--- and then this week I had a few golf balls and some ceramic eggs laying around so I put them in the nest and this week has been better. I also try to go collect eggs 3-4 times a day. It is frustrating!

 

[suzie226]

Last Summer we had an egg eating problem, We used my mothers trick, mix oyster shells in with the scratch grain, it stopped almost at once.

 

[jtl977]

Golf balls also work if you have them around and don't want to spend the money on buying other "fake" eggs.

 

[Dray67]

Quote:
Gulf balls worked for me with in a few days. Mine were not eating the egss but pecing a hole or two in them.
also Frozen meat balls are cheap enough for a high protine treat, the are easy to toss in don't make a mess in the pen.