Egg-eating

[IronMonkey68]

My chickens began regularly eating the eggs over a 2 week period. I watched one of them break one open and the rest of them fought over it; not even the shells were spared. I have 12 hens and 3 roosters. I was averaging approximately 10 eggs a day in the middle of winter which turned to 2 eggs a day after they started eating them. I put golf balls in their boxes and added some oyster shells to their feed which seems to have solved the problem for now.

 

[3girlzcraft]

XxMingirlxX, what kind of food coloring? I thought I had this problem solved, but it's happening again. I suspect one of my RIR, but not for sure. Does any food coloring hurt them?

 

[Mehjr10]

Use the color that will show up on your color of chickens, food safe is good.

 

[FaerieChicken]

Well darn, found egg this morning that looked like it either was pecked at or stepped on! Good thing I have some empty eggs ready to be filled with mustard!
The contents were still inside, so maybe just stepped on, will still put the mustard eggs out just invade!

 

[Chickens R Us]

Well my egg eater turned up again it is my RIR, only problem is I put her in my other coop which already has a RIR in it and her ankle bracelet fell off so now I'm not sure which one is which so I separated them again.

No eggs eaten today that I noticed.

 

[jflanny]

Hens don't have receptors that burn their tongues. This doesn't work - they just eat the mustard.

 

[FaerieChicken]

The mustard worked for quite some time, I stopped putting them in their nest boxes! Then an egg broke, so I fixed that but I noticed eggs broken open and not eaten?? I still haven't put the mustard eggs as I haven't been able to witness any peckers!

 

[jflanny]

Those pesky RIRs! I think what I am going to do is order a small coop with a run and slowly separate the suspects. Then when the guilty party is found, she will be isolated with maybe one other hen for friendship. Don't want to spend too much however since my husband has been very generous with my other coops and I don't want to push my luck!

 

[Chickens R Us]

I have separated my RIR and BSL I think they were in cahoots with the egg eating and bullying, They are both now at the bottom of the pecking order in their new coops and no more egg eating. It's been 2 weeks.

I really don't want to cull them so I hope this continues to work.

 

[spcwife]

I have three hens and one roo. I have noticed that within the past two weeks, two of my hens have started eating eggs. Is it a food thing, are they attacking each others eggs for a reason, can I do something to prevent this from happening? Please help. In five weeks my new chicks will go outside with them and I do not want them to pick up this same behavior.