Egg eating chickens...I'm about ready to give up!

[greathorse]

There is a way of course to build dare nests. If you think about the fact that light cannot bend so you have to build an entrance area and just make sure no light gets to the nest box. I would try a towel over the opening I think they would still go in.

 

[Enchanted Sunrise Farms]

i found this thread after reading your other one. i hate to tell you this, but it is near impossible to stop egg eating once it has started. i adopted five hens from someone who mentioned they weren't laying hardly at all, probably due to the change in weather. Well, i discovered they were laying, but eating them all. When one of the hens sat to lay, the rest would hover, beaks under her butt, ready to chomp up the egg. i tried darkening the nest boxes, filling eggs with hot sauce or wasabi or anything else nasty i could find. The whole idea of building elaborate rollaway nest boxes was just too much work. i finally adopted them out to a man who had 3 acres for them to free range. And that might be your option, giving them to someone with a lot of acreage so they will have too much to do rather than sit in the nest box eating eggs.

Life is too short and if your intention was to have some nice egg-laying hens, i would suggest cutting your losses and getting new hens. i might suggest Red Stars as egg-laying machines. Or Ameraucanas for the nice green eggs, and they are generally very friendly chickens.

Check your local craigslist. You will probably find some egg-laying chickens there.

Good luck!

Colleen

 

[grullablue]

I was kinda wondering that.... if they were free ranged, might they stop doing that? I cannot free range them here, it's not safe, with traffic and loose dogs (not mine!) and other wild animals, but was wondering if someone might take them to let them free range...and then they might stop. Who knows.

They do exactly as you say. I've had to guard a hen who was laying....otherwise they hover in and around the nest box, tormenting her, pecking her butt, just waiting for that egg to pop out. They are little vultures! I was so eager to have chickens...but and I love watching them, but the eggs we do get are sticky and full of yolk from the eggs they've already broken apart and eaten. And that's IF we get any at all. Today I managed to save three...I was amazed! (out of 9 hens, I used to get 9 a day!) But they were all sticky and yellow, with the remains of other eggs all over the place of course. It's a massacre!

 

[Hangin Wit My Peeps]

I haven't read all the comments but I was wondering about the slanted nest box? There was someone on here who had made a nest and it slanted back so the egg would roll out into a holding tray where the chickens could not reach the egg to eat it. I think that would solve your problem. They had a picture here but I have no clue where it is. Maybe someone here would remember that thread? It was a really nice looking nest box.

 

[snowydiamonds]

rocks shaped like and the size of eggs in each box as I posted in the other thread