egg eating

[coolidge]

please help! got 2 chickens -4 months old in July-an Americauna and Rhode Island Red -both started laying in September. So far, 19 eggs have been laid with 7 having been eaten - by the Rhode Island Red. Not sure what to do - would prefer not to cull her. Any suggestions? have tried golf balls, wooden eggs, plenty of oyster shell and let them out for about an hour a day to roam.

 

[Cloverleaf Farm]

I cured one egg eater once...I took a store bought egg (so the shell was thinner) and blew out the insides, filled it with Dawn soap, sealed the holes with wax, and gave it back to her. She never ate another egg.

 

[cmitcham]

my wife saw one of our first eggs hit the ground while the ladies were out free-ranging. all of them swarmed on it and devoured it. we had a problem. we were getting our first eggs out of the nest boxes untouched, but eggs that were laid in the coop, run, or out on the range were the chicken's new favorite treat. they are our first chickens, and they were just old enough to lay, so they got accustomed to their new treats before we knew what was going on.

of course, i jumped on byc, and the most common solution mentioned was to blow an egg and fill with mustard. we did that and found our birds love mustard. i don't think i saw the dishsoap before, surely they wouldn't like that. what has worked for us is golf balls and craft store wooden eggs. but you can't just get a few and throw them out there. the chickens will just learn that those things are like rocks. the key to solving the problem is to be very random (but frequent) about when and where the fake eggs show up. we put them in the coop, in the run, and out in the yard, and we moved them often. if the chickens see lots of fake eggs at different places and different times, they do (at least ours did) lose interest in trying to eat them.

another thing that helped with our flock was to confine them to the run/coop untill after laying hours. ours will go into the nest boxes from the coop or run to lay, but if they are out in the yard, they just drop'em without hardly even stopping where they're headed.

 

[nikischicks]

Quote:
Thats really clever!