Eggs are disappearing?

[Cedarglen93401]

I have 8 barred rock hens, 9 months old, who run free in my back pasture during the day, with free access to their "coop" which is a horse stall, during the day. Morning and night I open and close their stall door to keep predators out at night.

Weekends, when people are around, I get 7-8 eggs a day. Weekdays, when I get home from work, there are usually 6 eggs. I am thinking that something is coming in during the daylight hours and helping themselves to an egg or two, leaving no trace that I can see.

Any ideas of where I should start in solving this mystery?

Would a feral cat take eggs? Is it more likely a rat?

Thanks for any help and ideas!

 

[Wynette]

First of all,

Hope you enjoy BYC!!

Is it possible that you've got one eating eggs? The fact that you get more on the weekend when you are home makes me think you are collecting often...since you can't be there to collect during the week, that would give an egg eater more time to eat one, since you're not around. I would think if a predator was stealing eggs, you'd have more than 1 or 2 gone each day, but I could be wrong.

It's hard to know if you've got an egg eater. They typically eat the egg and the entire shell. You can sometimes see a smear of yellow from the yolk on their heads, or beak...or splattered near a nest box. But, it's hard to find the evidence. GOOD LUCK!

 

[MayberrySaint]

It may be just random variation...especially this time of year with decreasing daylight.
Is it happening every weekend? And for how long? If it has only been on a couple of weekends, I wouldn't suspect a egg-stealer just yet.

 

[blossom hen]

Here it's a squirrel! And so far, he's too smart to take the bait in a Havaheart trap! (Used a surveillance camera to see what was getting the eggs, two or three a day, when I was not at home to check and gather eggs several times a day.)

 

[lovemychix]

Someday I get tons of eggs and other days I'm dissappointed.