Four chickens, two problems. Egg Eating and Broody Hen

[Chicken Rule our Roost]

We need advice. We have only four birds that are maybe 10 months old. They were laying 3-4 eggs consistently for about a month. Gradually production tapered off to nothing. We thought maybe the kids were not taking their responsibility of food and water seriously enough, the timer on the light was on the fritz, they were too young to be consistent, etc....Until two weeks ago.
We have three black birds and one white. The white one, Buckbeak, appeared to have yolk on his feathers. This incriminating evidence she has not yet learned to hide. I am not certain that she is the sole guilty bird. As the alpha hen, she may be falling victim to a coup attempt by the other birds who are trying to frame her by smearing her with yolk. Maybe they all enjoy the feast and the yolk does not show so well on the black feathers as it does on the white.

I have placed wooden eggs in the box, slightly rearranged the coops floorplan, begun to feed them sunflower seeds and oyster shells but still no eggs. Any other advice. All the chickens have names and are pets of our kids, so culling is not an option.


The second issue is a broody hen who never, I mean never gets of the nest. Pehaps she is not broody and she is just protecting her eggs from the voracious cannibals she is forced to live with. Is there any way to train her as a guard chicken that would protect her beloved eggs from the other fiends?

 

[sewchick]

I read in another post they do eat their eggs and leave little or no evidence. You might try building something that will let the eggs down a small funnel area into a catch. Not real sure how that works. Someone here will probably know how to build one. Once they start eating them I guess it's hard to break them of it. I don't have anything else to help. Hope you get some answers.