Feeding egg shells resulted in chickens eating eggs

[cmom]

Once in a very great while one may be an egg eater. I have had that happen too. I sold her. I'm not sure if she continued the practice at her new place but she would be acclimating to it so maybe not as it would be a new environment. Otherwise if a egg is cracked the birds have eaten it but very rarely this happens. Maybe you could blow out an egg and put something very unsavory in the egg and see if she does it and maybe it will teach her a lesson. Just an idea. Good luck...

 

[Brown Chick]

I went from 9 eggs a day to 6 a day for the last week. I am thinking it is a regular occurrence for this week.

 

[cmom]

I don't know how many birds you have but most usually skip a day or two weekly and some breeds lay less often.

 

[AmeliaBedelia]

Maybe try the "mustard filled egg" thing to see if that resolves the issue?

 

[Yardmom]

Add oyster shells in addition to egg shells. Chickens need to have more calcium going in than what comes out. She may still be lacking calcium. Did you have another sourse of calcium before the egg shells? Also with the egg on the ground the chances of it having been cracked are high.

 

[Cryss]

Are you also offering oyster shell? If not she may be desperate for calcium. I wouldn’t stop giving crushed ( beyond recognition) egg shells but I’d mix them into be oyster shell. I have had mine eat a soft shell egg but never a hard shell egg.

 

[Brown Chick]

Add oyster shells in addition to egg shells. Chickens need to have more calcium going in than what comes out. She may still be lacking calcium. Did you have another sourse of calcium before the egg shells? Also with the egg on the ground the chances of it having been cracked are high.

We have oyster shells on the ground and feed layer feed.

 

[NatJ]

Feeding egg shells resulted in chickens eating eggs. I did everything just like people on the forum said. I baked them. I crushed them. I fed them only two times. I went from 9 eggs a day to 6. I saw the deleware peck the egg on my camera and when I got out there all the hens were eating it

I went from 9 eggs a day to 6 a day for the last week. I am thinking it is a regular occurrence for this week.

I agree that your chickens are probably eating eggs.

But I'm not sure it was caused by feeding them eggshells. There are many other things that could be involved, even though it did start right after you fed them eggshells.

I guess the real question is do I have to start over with another flock. I have too many to keep as pets.

Maybe, but maybe not. It's probably worth spending a bit of time checking for causes and trying to break them of the habit.

--Make sure they have enough calcium, so the eggshells are nice and hard. (This avoids eggs breaking by accident. A dish of oyster shell available free-choice is often a good idea, so the hens can eat as much as they need.)

--Make sure they are getting enough protein: at least 16% and possibly up to about 25% in their food. If they get many low-protein treats they may need an even higher rate of protein in their basic food. (Egg is a good source of protein. Sometimes egg-eating is caused by chickens needing more protein.)

--Try to encourage hens to lay IN the nestboxes, rather than on the floor. (Eggs on the floor are more likely to trigger egg eating. New layers often lay a few eggs in the wrong place and then figure it out for themselves, but in general it helps to have comfortable nestboxes, maybe a bit secluded or darkened, with some fake eggs in them.)

--Collect eggs as frequently as you can. (They cannot eat eggs if the eggs are not there to eat.)

--Provide plenty of fake eggs, in the nestboxes and maybe even one or two on the floor. (Every time a chicken breaks a real egg, she gets to eat the tasty stuff inside. But every time she tries to break a fake egg, she bumps her beak on something hard that does NOT give any tasty treats. Some chickens will eventually give up trying to break eggs, if they have access to fake eggs but not real ones.)

--If you notice one particular hen that regularly breaks open eggs, try penning her separately or getting rid of her. There is a chance that will stop it, if the others haven't yet learned it from her.

Some of those are things you are probably doing already. I was just trying to give a fairly complete list that's all in one place.

I would probably check those things, and then spend a week or two collecting eggs as often as you can while leaving fake eggs around. If it doesn't help in two weeks, then start thinking about whether to replace the flock.

 

[RubelliteRose]

If you decide to use the fake eggs, I know they can get pricey. We had a bunch of rocks from Home Depot left over from when painting and hiding rocks was a big thing in our area. We used some in our nest boxes when our flock first started laying. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Rain-Fo...Rock-Caribbean-Beach-Pebbles-RFERL1/202576848

 

[Percheron chick]

There is not a straight line from feeding back egg shells to egg eating. Most chicken keepers recycle egg shells back to our chickens without issue. Egg eating usually has other triggers. Was the egg cracked, is the hen's diet deficient in anything but typically protein or calcium, have you experienced a dramatic weather fluctuation, is there a power struggle going on...