egg eating: will they leave anything?

[frankenchick]

someone laid an egg on the coop floor this morning -- I think it must've been a new layer. It was broken and kind of smeared around.

Q1: If the others were eating it, would there have been any left?

Q2: How do I get this girl to lay in the nest box?

 

[rosyposyosy]

i dont know, but my pullets second egg was on the ground and broken - she could've pecked at it. the best thing to do is probably to take it out as soon as possible and see if they continue to do this

 

[LynnGrigg]

1. sometimes yes/sometimes no - usually mine will eat everything up.
2. if the others lay in the box, she'll probably end up laying there too - you can leave golf balls or plastic Easter eggs in the box. It encourages the hens to lay in the box and discourages them from egg eating. I strongly advise anyone who wants to feed the egg shells back to the hens to crush them well and NEVER toss them a whole egg. Once they discover eggs are good and edible, you'll have a BIG problem with them eating eggs before you can collect them.

 

[frankenchick]

that's the weird thing about it; I've had golf balls in the nest boxes from the get-go. My two girls who are laying consistently always use the boxes (there was an egg in there this am, hours before Miss Prissy usu. lays her egg). So what's going on? Was the box occupied? Were none of the other 5 good enough? Did she not know it was coming?

Oh, the mysterious ways of chickens . . .

 

[LynnGrigg]

I had chicken years ago and sometimes they just miss the box. I've had experienced laying hens drop them from the roost/lay them in odd places. I had one hen who would fly the coop everyday and come back to roost at night. I found her stash of eggs under a hedge on one side of the run... then clipped her wing. I'd love to free range but we don't have a large property fence and we've always had wandering dogs as well as our own dogs. The hens wouldn't be safe and I don't really want to have to look all over my two acre yard for eggs.