Entire young flock eating eggs-help!

[ketokinak]

My 4 RIR mixes are 4.5 months old. I was watching carefully for signs of laying. 3 hens, 1 rooster.
Today went in to see them all happily eating an egg, shell and all. No clue how long they have been at this, I have never seen an egg from them before!
I gave them a bunch of ceramic eggs to see what they would do and they all attacked them (clearly they have been doing this for a while). I filled an egg with mustard and they immediately cracked that egg open, and ate most the mustard!
What kind of roll away nesting box do people recommend? How do you teach them to use a box? (No signs the boxes have been used). Coop is 5X7 and run is 5X8. 2 nesting boxes. I just added oyster shell today (instructions said not to until they were laying).
Any other suggestions? These are my first chickens and I do not know where we went wrong.

 

[Judy]

What are you feeding them?

 

[Kelsie2290]

X2, what and how much feed are they getting? Not sure if you have seen it but there is also a nice article in the Learning Center on breaking egg eaters. https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/six-tips-on-breaking-your-egg-eater I think I would put Pinless Peepers on this flock asap until you figure out what is going on, egg eating is a darn hard habit to break. Bad egg eaters will grab take eggs right out of the nests to eat, not just eat them in the nests.
Most poultry companies that sell nesting boxes will sell some sort of roll away box. For DIY Here is a thread with a wonderful design by the BYC member Opa https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/287684/new-rollout-nest-design-picture-heavy-edited-1-21 a friend made a set using this design and they work wonderfully. Here is another plan http://www.agf.gov.bc.ca/resmgmt/publist/Leaflets/Poultry/341-02.pdf

 

[ketokinak]

Thanks for the information! We altered our nest boxes to be roll away, unfortunately, the only eggs that I have found so far are on the floor of the coop. How do you get them to use a nest box?
I will look into the blinders. Throwing 10 ceramic eggs into the coop has at least created confusion. I have retrieved 2 eggs unpecked by checking every couple of hours.

They have large feeder that never runs empty, there is also a smaller feeder in the coop that I also refill daily. The birds look and feel nice and plump.