Eggs Disappearing?

[Zen Wildlife Rescuer]

Hi all. I have a flock of 5 chickens. (1 roo and 4 hens.) 2 of my girls are laying and I make sure to collect their eggs late in the morning to make sure the eggs don’t get dirty or cracked.

Yesterday, only my Orpington laid. (Or so I thought) Today when I walked by the coop I glanced at my Orpington’s egg that had been rolled closer to the door of the nest box and had a hairline crack in it. I decided to wait for my Lohman to lay as well and when I went back this afternoon, the egg was gone with no other eggs in sight. I searched the coop and can’t find any evidence of it having been eaten by a pest or by one of the chickens. No shells, no liquid ANYWHERE. What could be the cause?

 

[aart]

What could be the cause?

What predators do you have there that would have access and eat an egg....
.....snakes, large lizards, rodents???

 

[Zen Wildlife Rescuer]

I’m in a suburb in South Africa. But there aren’t many predators. None that have ever been a threat to my chickens or rabbits who are free range.

I’ve seen a rat in their coop once. He ran off with a chip in his mouth. Other than that I’ve found a brown house snake shedding last week but it was way too small and they don’t eat eggs.

We live right near a game reserve. But I’ve never had any wildlife such as mongoose or jackal come into my yard. I’m thinking of setting up a camera tomorrow to see what I find.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Here in the US the typical critters that take an egg without leaving a trace are snakes, canines like coyote or fox, and humans. In South Africa you may have others. I assume you carefully searched for that egg, it didn't get buried in the nest or displaced.

A snake has to be a possibility. A wild canine would likely be interested in your hens more than the eggs but a dog can easily eat eggs and not bother hens. A human doesn't have to mean a thief, some people think this type of stuff is a good practical joke.

 

[Zen Wildlife Rescuer]

Okay thanks for the info. Our yard is very secure with over 8ft high concrete walls, and our backyard in particular is completely animal proofed. Having so many different animals coexist in the back we need them to be secure and safe. So I’m not entirely sure what happened. But managed to collect my 2 eggs today without them disappearing.

 

[TinyRaptorDodos]

Did you figure out what it was?

 

[tcstoehr]

Two years in a row I stopped getting eggs around July. Only an occasional one or two from my 4 hens. I figured this would go on indefinitely year after year. I did find the occasional egg outside the nesting box towards the pop door. One day I found an egg between the nesting box and the coop wall and I wondered how it got in there. So I removed the false top of the nesting box to get a better look down the side. I found about 60 eggs of various age sitting on top of the box, obviously stashed there by some animal. There was no room for any more so they were starting to fall out over the side. I'm guessing a local squirrel did it. After I removed them all the problem went away. That was last year and this year I'm still getting eggs as expected.