Egg eating hen

[chickendale1]

One of my hens, not sure which one , has developed a taste for eggs. Everyday at least one egg has been pecked at and occasionally one will will be eaten. All my hens lay in the same spot and take turns laying. Any ideas ?

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Either get roll out nest boxes, add protein and calcium to the feed or eliminate the egg eatet

 

[neo71665]

Either get roll out nest boxes, add protein and calcium to the feed or eliminate the egg eatet

That. Breaking an egg eater can be tough and she can easily start getting the whole flock doing it. I have roll out boxes because I'm lazy and the eggs come out cleaner but I would be culling the bird.

 

[Ridgerunner]

One of my hens, not sure which one , has developed a taste for eggs. Everyday at least one egg has been pecked at and occasionally one will will be eaten. All my hens lay in the same spot and take turns laying. Any ideas ?

A lot of hens will eat an egg that is opened. That doesn't man she is an egg eater. To me an egg eater is a hen that purposefully opens an egg to eat it. A question. How thick are the egg shells of the one that have been "pecked"? A hen walks on the eggs when she is getting on and off of the nest. Are those really peck marks or are the hen's claws poking holes in them? Is your problem thin shells instead of an egg eater?

I had an egg eater once. She would open one or two eggs a day to eat, some of the other hens would help her eat them after she opened them. But she did not bother other eggs laid in the same nest. I did not expect that, I expected her to open all of them.

It took a few days to figure out which hen it was. I put an egg on the coop floor and she opened it in front of me. I was getting kind of frustrated trying to figure out which one it was. I immediately ate her before she could teach any of the others to become egg eaters.