Egg eating

[Smileybans]

I usually collect the eggs around 2pm. Everyone is almost done laying then. But I can adjust the times to make it multiple times a day. I know they don’t really start laying until 10 though. Collecting the eggs went okay today because I enlisted the help of my sister. She was just over and wanted to see them. So everyone was more distracted by her. My numbers today weren’t off by much either. Only like two eggs.

 

[3KillerBs]

I know they don’t really start laying until 10 though.

I am always in awe when I read about someone whose hens lay on a schedule.

Mine lay anytime from barely dawn to just before dusk.

 

[Smileybans]

I am always in awe when I read about someone whose hens lay on a schedule.

Mine lay anytime from barely dawn to just before dusk.

I’m sure mine won’t always be on a schedule. But I’ve gone down to the coop before 10am and have found no new eggs. There’s also rarely ever any new eggs in the morning. Unless someone lays one off the roost I guess.

 

[Smileybans]

Apparently I am to the point where I have to collect the eggs right as they’re laid now. I guess they had Ben eating the eggs and I didn’t realize it. I count my eggs every day and the numbers didn’t seem different from the basket incident. I’d have a day where I would only get 9 but I thought it was just a fluke. My normal day is about a dozen. Well I collected 6 times, 2x more than usual, and got five more eggs. So they’ve been eating five a day all along. ‍♀
Now I’m not sure how to break it except turn my nest box into a roll away box. Is that possible with this box? It has no back so I would have to add one. The back is the coop wall.

 

[Smileybans]

These are the ideas I’ve come up with so far. No idea if they’ll work though.

 

[MeeMawsChicks]

Today one of the hens dumped the egg basket when my back was turned. Half the eggs broke and everyone treated it like some kind of buffet. It was a struggle to get everyone to stop crowding the broken eggs but after I cleaned up the mess they figured out the good stuff was gone. However they now associate the egg basket with food. Are they going to start eating all the eggs? Will I be finding broken eggs in the coop? Or will my numbers just start dwindling? How do I break them of thinking the eggs are their food?

I just had that happen a little bit ago but it was only one egg! The chickens all ran to it ate the yolk and grabbed the shell and ran with it! It was in large pieces and I worried about them choking on the shell. There was no way to get it away from them. They loved the game of chase!
I am now hoping that they won’t think of eggs as food! When they were young, I would scramble eggs for them and they loved them. I never gave raw eggs though.