Egg killer

[maryellen21]

This morning i found an egg on the pen floor in the dirt. It was crushed and looked like something ate it then regurgitated it. I found a hole under the post and filled it in with rocks and sand and this morning there was another hole. I think its a snake as the hole isnt that large.
Would a chicken crush its egg to look like it was eaten but not eat the yolk?
I got 5 eggs from my one tetra but nothing in a few days and i found this crushed soft egg this morning. Wouldnt the chicken eat the entire yolk?

 

[chooks4life]

Very unusual for a chook to leave a yolk and the shell... I expect it's a snake or monitor lizard.

If you add your country to your profile info it helps people with providing location specific info, otherwise you'll regularly be asked where you live, because the differences in laws, medications, breeds, diseases, parasites, predators, and so forth can vary so massively between states, countries etc that it can be useless at best or harmful at worst to give advice without regards to your location.

I had monitors/goannas go into the cages and eat eggs before, they never harmed the chooks even though they could have eaten them --- the chooks were running over their backs --- some of those goannas weighed more than I do, they were quite large; but they also regurgitated all the shells like you describe.

May help to get fake plaster of paris eggs, coat them in acrylic or similar, use them as nest eggs to help deter predators and be more prompt about removing freshly laid eggs if you can.

Best wishes.

 

[maryellen21]

Oops i thought i had my state in my profile. I'll fix that. I'm in nj so only snakes..
I wake up at 500 am and let dogs out and check coop, at night after work i check it a lot. This happened between 11pm at 430 am

 

[chooks4life]

Ah, well, won't be the chooks then, they're not 'up' at that hour. Must be a snake.

Good luck with getting that sorted.

 

[aart]

Snake...regurgitates it when it couldn't fit back thru it's hole?
....but...
......I don't think snakes can dig or re-dig a hole, so there might be a rodent at play too.

 

[maryellen21]

Yeah I'm grasping at straws, i got 5 eggs last week like clockwork and this week nothing but a mushy one in the dirt

 

[maryellen21]

Its a rodent. Hole this morning in pen where i blocked it. Tonight gonna put fencing down do rodent cant dig under wood

 

[chooks4life]

Snake...regurgitates it when it couldn't fit back thru it's hole?
....but...
......I don't think snakes can dig or re-dig a hole, so there might be a rodent at play too.

Depending on the species and how soft the dirt or blockage is, some snakes will manage, but generally they just use holes rodents have dug.

Its a rodent. Hole this morning in pen where i blocked it. Tonight gonna put fencing down do rodent cant dig under wood

lol, good luck with trying to stop rodents getting in... It's often completely futile. You're generally better off trying to remove the food sources before night time, they can be quite the acrobats.

I had one rat leap a meter off the top perch in an aviary to do some kind of high speed shimmy between the vertical sheetmetal of the back of the cage, and the horizontal sheetmetal of the roof. She'd do that regularly since she couldn't get in anywhere around floor level nor two meters above floor level, and it was all pointless, she had easy access to other cages containing the very same food, but just seemed to like terrorizing any chooks I tried to put in that cage. I'd blocked those holes repeatedly, with a variety of things including metal aviary mesh, rocks, bricks, wood, etc, and she just kept dragging them out of there. They're amazingly strong for their size.

Best wishes with your rodent/snake/whatever issue.

 

[lazy gardener]

I think you have a rat. And if you have one rat, you probably have at least 10 more that you are not aware of. Can you put a trap or more in the coop, protected by a box so the chickens don't have access? Do you notice that you are having to buy feed more often??? Is your feed kept in a METAL can, and well covered? How many chickens do you have? If you are dealing with rodents, it's important that you remove all food access. The best way to do that is to switch to fermented feed, that way there will not be any feed spilled onto the ground. Feed them once or twice/day, and never leave any feed available over night. All eggs should be out of the coop before dusk.

 

[maryellen21]

The fed is in a plastic feeder from tsc, its never empty fast so i didnt think of a rat issue, the rat strikes at night, so i can block off the area under the coop where the sand is and put a trap up. I will also put all chickens in coop at night and lock coop door until rat issue is done as the tetras and rooster gave been sleeping on the roost in the pen and the other hens go in the coop. We are going to work on this starting tonight after work. The shed is next to coop and a hole is under shed near hole in pen... I'll also remove all feed at night now too.