Horse eating eggs?!

[Oncoming Storm]

So for awhile now when I walk up from my barn I’ll find a shattered duck egg. At first I thought it was accidentally stepped on but all the yolk is gone. The shattered remains are always in relatively the same spot and are completely shattered with no yolks. I remembered from a book I read that one pegasus Herd in the story would eat bird eggs in hard times and that started me thinking since the author owns several horses. When I read up on it, it turns out that people feed their horses eggs all the time! But could it be that my horse is snatching up stray duck eggs and eating them somewhere else? If so, any ideas how to make it stop?

 

[Willowspirit]

I wd suspect a rodent or a crow before i would suspect my horses. But just because I've never offered eggs it doesn't mean they wouldn't have eaten them!

 

[HomesteaderWife]

As Willow said, suspect rodents or (even other poultry!) How often is it happening?

 

[Oncoming Storm]

As Willow said, suspect rodents or (even other poultry!) How often is it happening?

It hadn’t happened in awhile but it would happen once a week or so. I don’t really suspect crows since the nests are under thick foliage. The only reason I suspect my horse is that when he sees the duck on the nest he messes with her and tries to get her off the nest. The thing that makes me wonder about rodents is that where I find the egg remains is in the complete open. It seems pretty risky for a squirrel to eat out in the open since we have two hawks in our area.

 

[Ginmary]

I would also think that rodents wouldn't just eat the yolks. Although it sounds strange that a horse's big mouth could aim for just a yolk.

 

[Sue Gremlin]

Raccoon.

 

[cmom]

Do you have a game camera you can put up? That is how I have discovered things.