Fake Egg Goes Missing

[Isaac 0]

No.Do you have venomous snakes around your area?Snakes arent that bad ,They keep the mice away.

 

[Zoomie]

I routinely had fake eggs stolen by magpies. They would fly off with them to the woods, where they would try very hard to hammer them open. I thought it was hilarious. Of course that alerted me to the fact they were going in there, and so I changed things around so the magpies were very reluctant to go in there during the day. (I put a tunnel going out from the door which the hens learned to use but magpies didn't like it so much.) I have since built two new coops and now have it so that NO wild birds can get in the run with my chickens. And voila! My fake eggs now stay put and don't go on walkabout.

 

[CharB]

I have three nesting boxes and each had a fake egg. Last year, shortly after my hens started laying, I found two fakes in one box. I was puzzled as to how it got moved as my husband assured me it was not him. I put it back. I got moved again! After doing some reading I discovered there are some hens that will either roll an egg or carry it under their wing to another location. I had a fourth egg so now one of the boxes has two. Apparently that satisfied the hen (an Australorp) and she has not moved an egg since. I'm hoping you find your missing egg rather than a fat snake!

 

[Abriana]

I don't have any chicks. Will the snake hurt my hens?

The snake won't hurt the hens, but if you do hatch out chicks or buy some, the snake will eat them if they are left in the coop. If the snake makes you nervous, you can buy cheap minnow traps at Walmart. I read that they do the trick pretty well. Once you have the snake captured, you can take it to some woods far from your coop and release it.

 

[Abriana]

I have three nesting boxes and each had a fake egg. Last year, shortly after my hens started laying, I found two fakes in one box. I was puzzled as to how it got moved as my husband assured me it was not him. I put it back. I got moved again! After doing some reading I discovered there are some hens that will either roll an egg or carry it under their wing to another location. I had a fourth egg so now one of the boxes has two. Apparently that satisfied the hen (an Australorp) and she has not moved an egg since. I'm hoping you find your missing egg rather than a fat snake!

Carry it under their wing? That's pretty neat!

 

[Abriana]

Should I be concerned that a snake is hanging around my chickens?

If you have baby chicks, you should be very concerned. But the snake won't bother the full grown hens. It will only eat eggs and keep away rodents such as mice. Watch out though, one day you might stick your hand into the nesting box to gather eggs and instead find a snake inside!

 

[CharB]

@Abriana - Yes! And most interesting about the story I read was the nesting boxes were stacked and they had to fly/jump up to get in them. So this hen had to tuck it under her wing then manage to hop over to the next box or up one.

My boxes are level with the coop floor (my coop is raised) so mine don't have to jump up to the boxes. I do have a lip so my hen either rolled it over the lip twice or carried it under her wing. I was surprised too.

 

[Abriana]

@Abriana - Yes! And most interesting about the story I read was the nesting boxes were stacked and they had to fly/jump up to get in them. So this hen had to tuck it under her wing then manage to hop over to the next box or up one.

My boxes are level with the coop floor (my coop is raised) so mine don't have to jump up to the boxes. I do have a lip so my hen either rolled it over the lip twice or carried it under her wing. I was surprised too.

That's pretty cool. I had a hen that went broody, but I took the eggs from her and put them outside the nesting boxes in a little pile. My nesting box has a very high lip too. I shut the door and did some stuff with the other girls and when I came back, all the eggs were back under the hen! I took them back again and sat on the roosting bar to watch and see what she would do. She got up, and used her beak to roll each egg, one by one, to the lip, over it, and underneath her. Luckily, once I drop this hen out of the coop, she shrugs off the whole idea of chicks and then tries again the next day, so it wasn't a big problem.

 

[GC-Raptor]

I have 2 nest boxes and 2 ceramic eggs. After they started to lay, an egg went missing. I found it when I changed the straw in the nest. A pullet buried it in the corner of the nest under about 3 inches of straw.
I've also found them knocked out of the nest.
They stopped knocking them out about a month after all were laying.
I have a 3 inch lip at the bottom of the nest. I would make it 4 inches next time. GC