Egg eating chickens!!!!!!!

[Who922]

My chickens have been eating eggs for a while now. It has gotten WORSE! I have 19 chickens and I'm getting 2-4 eggs a day! They have a good egg laying feed. They have grit (although they don't eat it much). They have plenty of water that is always available with a float. My father-in-law is convinced I should have never given them the crushed egg shells because that gave them a taste. I told him that everything I read encouraged it.

So I followed the advice of the good people here and made 4 eggs with mustard and very hot Tapatio sauce. IT worked......NOT!!! They ate the eggs and licked the mustard and hot sauce mix!!!

So....I made roll aways to catch the eggs and keep them covered. Finally, I got them to stop eating the eggs....NOT!!! They stick their heads under the rail (I guess, I haven't actually seen them) and eat the eggs. It seems they are just breaking them enough to eat the insides. There are a lot of broken eggs and shell pieces in the tray.

Ok, any ideas now? I can't afford to feed them anymore if they are going to eat all of the eggs.

Thanks for the help. No pressure, but their lives are in your hands!

 

[Chick Charm]

A properly built roll away nests prevents "COMPLETELY" the chickens from eating the eggs. So maybe consider the design of the roll away nest. Egg eating chickens do like the taste, so once they find a taste for them they do go back. I personally like to take the hen out of the flock if she is a repeat eater.

There are many critters that eat eggs other than chickens such as opossums, skunks, rats, snakes ect. Is it a possibility that something else is eating them? I thinks because you say there are broken eggs in the catch part of the roll away nest box that maybe another critter is possibly getting to them. Just a hunch.

Chickens do not seem to be fazed by hot sauce or pepper or anything spicy. They gobble that down also. They do not have the heat sensors like we do. So to them I guess it is like a treat. Mustard and Wasabi I have heard makes a difference but I have never tried it to speak with any experience. But you have, so don't give them any more mustard as they seem to like it.

I hope you resolve the egg eating issue. Don't give up.

Wish ya the best.

 

[Jackiekim]

I have the same problem. I have five hens (one and a half years old all of them) and we get perhaps one egg a day these days, down from four on average. At first, it seems like only one was greedy for eggs. We bought fake eggs and it confused the hen (or hens) enough to get us back to two to three eggs per day. Then, it seems like the problem spread to the other hens. I'm thinking that we may have to cull them all, which I am reluctant to do because I am very fond of them. We raised them from chicks. But the reality is that I probably have to start over.

 

[TheReadyBoys]

I would say make a roll away nest. That way, they won't even see the eggs once they are laid.