Egg eating gone wild!

[Judy]

Quote:
Hot pepper won't bother them, don't know about salt, some use mustard.

Collect often, put out lots of golf balls or other fake eggs, try the mustard. build a rollaway nest and wee if they will use it, block off the others if necessary. You can lock them in the coop til they are through laying to force them to use the rollaway.

If I'd ever actually built a nest, I'd have done the rollaway. (I just use whatever is lying around.)

 

[savingdogs]

Oh my goodness, I think you guys have the solution for us. My hubby is going to build one. I have the five chickens in the death row coop thanking you. I just had to add my beautiful new EE pullet to that coop as we confirmed today she is an egg eater too. So I have the egg eaters mostly in one place right now.

Thank you so much everyone...........I am not home during the day every day but we CAN build a roll away egg drop and keep them confined until they finish laying.....they are usually done by 10 am every day. Why didn't I think of that?

I suppose when one is feeling broody they will lay eggs somewhere else? At this point I'm ready to just buy an incubator so I have total control of the eggs.....I don't trust those chickens with them anymore!

 

[BlackBart]

Quote:
Hot pepper won't bother them, don't know about salt, some use mustard.

We used chinese hot pepper sauce and the hen never ate another egg again. She was definately feeling the effects of the hot pepper sauce.

 

[txcarl1258]

Try putting some mustard filled eggs in your "death row coop"

This should break them as chickens HATE mustard. Just plain yellow mustard will work.

 

[ultasol]

Birds aren't able to taste capascin from hot peppers. In fact, I give mine hot peppers as a treat, or dried chilis.

 

[karimw]

Quote:
I think I read somewhere you can use chili powder as a dewormer too, so for that to work I guess they'd have to be willing to eat it

 

[ranchhand]

All very good ideas!

And Opa's roll out nest boxes are great.

The only thing I could add would be to try to find out WHY they are eating eggs. Are they lacking protein in their diet? Do they have access to food 24/7? Are the eggs so thin that they break and then the hens dive on it? Is anyone laying while standing up?

That's been my experience. My hens have never actually broken a normal, hard shelled egg open, but if one breaks open accidently? Food fight! I finally had to put foam pads in the nests to stop the breakage from the standing layers. I had one that layed from the roost bar. She ended up being moved to a different group so she wasn't scared of the bullies anymore.

Good luck, hope you don't have to do anything drastic with the favorites!

 

[savingdogs]

Well they have food at all times and get to free range and we offer oyster shell. I give them BOSS which is what they would like to eat 24/7, but we try to limit it. I think my chickens are a little spoiled.
My egg shells were great 95 percent of the time or more and the duck ones are especially thick. I have nothing to lose trying the mustard so I'm going to give that a shot and also put some round rocks and golf balls into the nests. My chickens hate the slugs around here, huge and slimey and I was wondering how to put all that slime inside an egg for them to suffer through, but it would be easy as heck to inject a bunch of mustard into a blown egg, that sounds much nicer than mushing up slugs for their slime.

Maybe I should try giving them a little cat food? We also give them the (I know this is sick) fresh kills that my cats lay on the porch. When they are free ranging they follow the best mouser around as he doesn't eat them himself and dead mouse is their favorite treat of all. I know, that is GROSS, but I doubt mine are the only chickens that do that! The only ones that cannot free range right now are my death row ones as they would sneak back to the other coop. Maybe I have to give death row a new name, like "Egg scramblers Annonymous"

 

[BlackBart]

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I'm going to need a scientific report proving that one