Egg eating

[Spitman]

My pulleys have been laying for about a 1 1/2month now. It's been awesome to watch the egg count go from 1 or 2 to 9,10. However my wife forgot to let them out of coop this morning , and I got home around 1:00 when I let them out they almost ran me over they are spoiled and spend a good portion of the day free ranging. When I checked the nests one of the boxes looked wet like the chicken went pee lol. I know they don't urinate so I looked closer and saw some yoak, but no egg shell at all . I'm guessing that one of my chickens eat it.?could it be because we left them locked in the coop? Will the egg eater just continue to eat the eggs? Could it be that one of the chickens just laid an egg that had no shell? I havnt had any soft eggs, they have all seemed like normal shelled eggs. But I figured there would be some egg shell left or some kind mess if a chicken eat the egg? Any information or advise would be awesome.

 

[JLS]

Often times the egg is entirely consumed including the shell. It may have been an isolated case. Keep your eyes open and keep track of how many eggs you're collecting each day. If there is an egg eater you should put in 3 golf balls/wooden or ceramic eggs per nest box. The egg eater will try to peck the hard "eggs" and it will not work or feel very good. You must leave them in there for several weeks. Also collect the real eggs several times a day. It worked for me

 

[seminolewind]

Hi, golfballs is the way to go. However, sometimes a chicken steps on an egg by accident, and everyone thinks it's a treat. So see if it continues, too.

 

[luvchicks8]

I have an egg eater she drives me nuts

She will lay her egg on the favorite nesting box then eat all the eggs in it.

 

[Judy]

Happens to me off and on, too. I think they break it accidentally. Half the time they don't eat it, or only eat part of it.

A lot of people use those rubbery shelf coverings, a couple of layer. Mine scratch out all the hay in the center, so they are laying on bare wood. If you've ever caught one laying, you will already know that they sort of stand to lay and the egg drops a couple of inches.

Chances are it won't develop into a problem. If it does, though, and nothing else works for you, rollaway nests may be the only solution.