Favorite Pullet caught eating freshly laid egg out from under the layer hen! :(

[CluckerFamily]

They are still young and trying to figure things out in this new and confusing time.
When the ladies lay their eggs they will always lay in the same nesting box every day, they will impatiently wait for someone to leave their usual nesting box so that they can lay theirs.
Have you tried moving some of the eggs into a different nesting box since all of them share the same one. Maybe the new ones need to see that they don't have to lay all in the same one. Or you could put some fake eggs in the other 3 nesting boxes.
It would be good to do this before the new laying pullets start getting in the habit of their nesting box.

 

[Rivendell Chick]

Whenever my girls are having egg issues, and one of them drops an egg in the run without usually nesting, they all start pecking at it. I'm not sure why, but mine do the same thing. Any eggs in the nesting boxes are safe and none of them touch them.

Now I am paranoid that if I don't get a certain number of eggs from boxes that I'll be eyeing Brownie for evidence! But when I find 5 in one box after being in the house for 90 minutes, I think I got them all safely.

 

[Rivendell Chick]

They are still young and trying to figure things out in this new and confusing time.
When the ladies lay their eggs they will always lay in the same nesting box every day, they will impatiently wait for someone to leave their usual nesting box so that they can lay theirs.
Have you tried moving some of the eggs into a different nesting box since all of them share the same one. Maybe the new ones need to see that they don't have to lay all in the same one. Or you could put some fake eggs in the other 3 nesting boxes.
It would be good to do this before the new laying pullets start getting in the habit of their nesting box.

I check and remove eggs 4-5 times a day (it still eggcites me, lol) and all the boxes have a dummy egg in them. I do see them visiting other boxes and a rare instance of laying in a different one. I'm keeping an egg log that includes where I find them. The water bowl today was novel, especially from my first layer that always has laid in the boxes, same one. But I had 8 of the 10 hopping in and out of all 4 boxes throughout the day, lot of energy. So maybe everyone just excited.

 

[jolenesdad]

Honestly I find most egg eating issues are opportunistic. The issue is more with the egg being laid than the egg eater.

I’d imagine that an egg not in the box is a soft shelled egg, a hiccup in the system.

I have a few girls that will lay softer but not totally soft shelled eggs and if they’re cracked moving then around by another girl they’re immediately eaten.

I regularly feed broken eggs back to the flock and have no issues at all with egg eaters UNLESS the egg has a fault already.

watch further instances but you don’t have a problem yet.

After reading through your list of feed, I think there’s a chance you’re too treat heavy and this layer may not be getting enough calcium. Is the one that laid the egg dominant? And how new of a layer?

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Personally mine eat eggs when they were busted, shell less or when they aren't getting enough protein or calcium. If she is lower on the pole too, she might not be getting enough to eat

 

[Rivendell Chick]

Honestly I find most egg eating issues are opportunistic. The issue is more with the egg being laid than the egg eater.

I’d imagine that an egg not in the box is a soft shelled egg, a hiccup in the system.

I have a few girls that will lay softer but not totally soft shelled eggs and if they’re cracked moving then around by another girl they’re immediately eaten.

I regularly feed broken eggs back to the flock and have no issues at all with egg eaters UNLESS the egg has a fault already.

watch further instances but you don’t have a problem yet.

After reading through your list of feed, I think there’s a chance you’re too treat heavy and this layer may not be getting enough calcium. Is the one that laid the egg dominant? And how new of a layer?

This was a wheaten Maran, a new layer, possibly her very first egg. She is very high in the order and the egg eater, a cochin, very low. The egg was a hard shelled egg - it rolled when it landed on the sand. Two other marans laid their first eggs in the run also but have not since. I've actually had no soft eggs at all, and only two were small enough to be considered a fairy egg. Out of 7 weeks of eggs, perhaps 5 weren't in nest box, so I thought things were going really well.

 

[Rivendell Chick]

Personally mine eat eggs when they were busted, shell less or when they aren't getting enough protein or calcium. If she is lower on the pole too, she might not be getting enough to eat

She had been staying in the coop a lot yesterday to avoid a bully Maran. I was feeding her special, but perhaps she was still a bit hungry. I made scrambled eggs for everyone yesterday for a bit of a protein boost since I had a couple doing this. The egg eater was mostly out today though.

 

[jolenesdad]

This was a wheaten Maran, a new layer, possibly her very first egg. She is very high in the order and the egg eater, a cochin, very low. The egg was a hard shelled egg - it rolled when it landed on the sand. Two other marans laid their first eggs in the run also but have not since. I've actually had no soft eggs at all, and only two were small enough to be considered a fairy egg. Out of 7 weeks of eggs, perhaps 5 weren't in nest box, so I thought things were going really well.

I imagine that it was a *thin* shelled egg, which is super common for new layers. It’ll sometimes take a a few days or more for their system to work it out.

its pretty hard for a chicken to break a firm egg quickly. Based on your description, I highly doubt the egg had a thick shell.

if she does have thinner shells that don’t firm up, since she is a dominant hen I would make sure she isn’t getting all the treats a d not eating enough layer feed.

 

[Rivendell Chick]

I imagine that it was a *thin* shelled egg, which is super common for new layers. It’ll sometimes take a a few days or more for their system to work it out.

its pretty hard for a chicken to break a firm egg quickly. Based on your description, I highly doubt the egg had a thick shell.

if she does have thinner shells that don’t firm up, since she is a dominant hen I would make sure she isn’t getting all the treats a d not eating enough layer feed.

Do you think I need to pull back on the veggies? The scratch and mealworms are not a lot.

I have not had any thin shell eggs yet - I'm even using a knife to crack my eggs as they are harder than store eggs. Always possible as I didn't get a chance to move before it was half gobbled. But the cochin behaved like something from Jurassic Park - it really was like watching a small dinosaur attack I'll keep a watch on this new girl who didn't seem too concerned she was laying at all - no vocalizations whatsoever.

 

[jolenesdad]

Do you think I need to pull back on the veggies? The scratch and mealworms are not a lot.

I have not had any thin shell eggs yet - I'm even using a knife to crack my eggs as they are harder than store eggs. Always possible as I didn't get a chance to move before it was half gobbled. But the cochin behaved like something from Jurassic Park - it really was like watching a small dinosaur attack I'll keep a watch on this new girl who didn't seem too concerned she was laying at all - no vocalizations whatsoever.

No I would not worry yet at all about feed, but if something consistently is happening, that’s one of the first places I would look. That doesn’t mean you’re doing too much at all, it just means that’s a space that *could* be causing egg shell issues.

like I said, it sometimes takes a bit for the layer to get in the groove. I had a marans this year that is my darkest layer ever and her first three eggs were paper thin shells that would crack with too much pressure picking them up. So upsetting because they were the darkest eggs I’ve ever had. It’s probably a little by design.... smaller thinner eggs may be easier to push out? Anyway, after 4 or 5 eggs, they firmed up. Lots of layers firm up after the first egg.

egg shell issues can come and go and either stress or diet are usually the culprits, OR, they’re just a new layer. Sometimes they’re just choosing more of something to eat and there’s not much to do about it, especially if you free range.

lots of egg problems in the future can show up in a one-off situation. Something like 5% or so of eggs have an issue. We aren’t used to this because anything with an imperfection is removed from the commercial egg supply we get from the store. Laying an egg is a super delicate process in reality and there are a few things that can go wrong if a bird gets startled or stressed at a certain moment in the process. I don’t usually get too concerned with anything unless it becomes a consistent problem.