Help! Eggs are often yucky with poo!

[Arielle]

Some of the eggs, not all, are less than perfectly clean. I want every egg to be perfectly clean. If a little poo touches the egg it is permantently stained.

THis is a new problem and I'm not sure why this is happening.

Too much mud in the area as the rainy season has arrived?

Poo is accumulating on the access board in front of the nest box--why is the hen dumping there?

I've checked in the nestbox and it looks clean. I remove an occassional poo. And I recently pulled out the straw and added 1" of clean shavings underneath hoping to fix the situation. No change.

 

[onthespot]

are you feeding them more kitchen scraps? I keep my birds at my friend's house, and she often dumps kitchen scraps to the birds. When she does, they get loose stools, and the eggs get "decorated" when they lay.

 

[ailurophile23]

Another possibility is that the hens bottoms are a little dirty - I know a couple of my brahmas can't seem to keep their fluffy butts clean and so we get a little poo on the eggs from time to time. Maybe you need to do some hen butt grooming/washing.

 

[Achickenwrangler#1]

somebody is sleeping there more likely, if you can change the access board to be unfortable to roost on they will pick another spot, you may have to remove it entirely first for them to get the hint, sometimes it takes awhile to 'arrange' the coop...for a while I had that problem until I realized the rooster was sneaking into the nest to sleep! Silly bird

 

[Arielle]

Quote:
I do feed scraps and they free range. They have a large pan of layer in the coop, and are let out at 7 am to the run or free range. THey eat everything! THey hike from the compost to the haypile to the horse paddocks.

WOuld additional probiotics be helpful here?

 

[Arielle]

Quote:
I will check a few more fluffy butts! I have been screening for mites and lice by checking around the vents-- so far the few hens sampled have been clean. But I will check more of them as some eggs are clean and others are

 

[Arielle]

Achickenwrangler#1 :

somebody is sleeping there more likely, if you can change the access board to be unfortable to roost on they will pick another spot, you may have to remove it entirely first for them to get the hint, sometimes it takes awhile to 'arrange' the coop...for a while I had that problem until I realized the rooster was sneaking into the nest to sleep! Silly bird

Maybe they are stepping on the yuck on the board just before entry into the nestbox; always seems to be a few poo on the access board; more on the board than in the nest box. Maybe a quick clean off twice a day.

Thanks for the insight.​

 

[Arielle]

Anyone else have ideas for input?

 

[fireguy56]

Hi, sorry but you will never have "every egg perfectly clean".
erik

 

[Arielle]

Quote:
Thanks for a reality check! Would like to have far more eggs clean like I used to have. Thanks again.