Egg Eating Chickens

[squat]

We have nine chickens. Almost every day we lose 1 or 2 eggs because one or more hens are eating them! How can we find out which ones are eating the eggs? We haven't been able to catch them in the act. We've tried filling eggshells with hot sauce, mustard, pepper; we've tried putting golf balls in their boxes, and we keep the supplied with oyster shell. Any ideas?

 

[newchicksnducks]

Quick questions...are you sure they're being eaten? If they are new layers and are dropping them on the roost/droppings board, they may just be getting broken and not eaten. Do you collect eggs frequently?

I know this must be aggrevating. I found my first egg eating bird yesterday! Apparently one fell out of the nest box or a girl laid from the perch outside the box while waiting for the favored location. I found the broken white in the floor shavings outside the box and two hens fighting over broken shells out in the run! I'm going to have to watch to see if this is to become a repeat offense.

 

[Lollipop]

That`s always a tough one. Some folks have had success finding telltale yolk on the chickens beak. Ya gotta look close. I had success by putting a fresh egg in the nest and watching for the transgressor. Mustard, pepper, or hot sauce won`t work because chickens don`t have the heat receptors in their beaks and throats like other animals. Noxema face cream or a cheap Walmart generic is a great anti peck ointment. Perhaps filling an egg with that stuff would discourage them..........Pop

 

[GardenWeasel]

I had a few eggs eaten in the nest box. After some investigation I saw they were moving all the straw around so they were laying on bare wood and breaking them and of course then eating the mess. I put carpet scraps to line the bottoms of the box and it hasn't happened again. I caught them with the egg on their beak,lol.

 

[tuesdays chicks]

build roll away nest boxes, if you're sure they are being eaten, I have a polished rock egg, that I originally used in my nest box when I only had 1 layer, you need something like that to leave in a nest, the only problem with it is I got a cracked egg 1s in awhile because the hen would drop her egg right on top of it, but if you left it in after the girls laid they might try to eat it and discover they couldn't and give up.