hope this is a good question

[can you hear me now?]

Okay, I just put 6 laying hens and a rooster in my run today. One of the hens is a white leghorn. She layed her egg today and then right away she went to pecking it. I know this isn't her usual behaviour because i have bought hatchlings of hers previously. Is pecking her egg and trying to eat it because of the stress of moving her or am I going to have to remove her from the flock now? We did watch her lay the egg and i thought it was neat if anyone was wondering.lol

 

[unionwirewoman]

Kinda a touchy subject . Once they start to do that...and actually break the egg open.....well they'll do it all the time . I'm still trying to find all of my egg eaters . My vote is to cull . Unless you don't care if she eats eggs . She will teach the others to do it ....so it's up to you . Sorry I can't help much .

 

[Wolf-Kim]

Watch and see if she does it more than once. I think it may have been because she was recently moved. Give her time to adjust and keep an eye out for any more or this behavior.

-Kim

 

[insideout]

I Have the same problem and there may be several way's to fix it one if you get empty egg shells you can fill them with hot sauce ( I mean really HOT sauce or they might like it) and when they peck it they find they don't like the taste another way make sure where they lay the egg has a clothe or something to over it to darken the area. You can also get wooden eggs put them in the nests and they can't peck them open so they stop. Also make sure they have hay and something to keep the hay in the nest. Hopefully some of that was usefull

 

[can you hear me now?]

Thanks I think I am going to try to make a box that rolls the eggs to the back and then into a hole where is will drop to a cushoned fall but I will keep those in mind in case they try to eat anything else.

 

[fivebigreds]

Is she pecking to break or just arrangeing it to suit her in the nest? The like to move the eggs arround sometimes.

 

[can you hear me now?]

no she just pecked it to break it. I wish it would have been the other thing because i could just write it off as an accident.

 

[robinaggie]

Question: you said you know this isn't her normal behavior because you have bought her hatchlings before. Why did the owner sell this chicken to you? Was it because she started eating eggs?

 

[can you hear me now?]

No, he has a racoon epidemic going on where he lives. He has shot over 5 racoons in the last month. This last time he lost one of his last two black sex links and had enough. He would rather see them live somewhere than see them all die. So he sold them to me. He doesn't know where the coons are getting in this time.

 

[robinaggie]

I'm sorry about the guys raccoons. Maybe you can ask him if she ever did this before, and how he got her to stop.