how can i get my hens to stop eating eggs??

[andrew6d9]

help

 

[abubakar4u2003]

Make sure that you don't have less space for the hens. That's the most frequent reason behind hens eating eggs. Make sure there is a special place in the coop where hens can lay eggs without getting disturbed and where they don't pass by frequently. Hungry hens are another reason for this problem. Make sure that feed is available to them 24 hours.

 

[kscottjoyce]

I've heard that getting eggs made of wood and painting them the color of your hens eggs will eventually teach them that eggs are too hard to eat. I would recommend a non-toxic paint.

 

[TigerLilly]

I would recommend eating the hens...

 

[chickenfarmer17]

you also can give them an egg with hot sauce in it although this may take a few tries

 

[Dar]

collect many times thought the day... we have egg eaters and we collect at 7am when they get opened... and again around noon.. and again at 4... and for a final time at 10pm we will get a dozen a day if we do this.. if not we get 4 - 5

 

[Erica]

Roll nests.

Or lock the birds in a shed or pen with no litter, no nestboxes, nothing on the floor at all, for about 2-3 weeks. The floor needs to be very plain with no obstacles. They will try to peck eggs but the eggs will roll away and eventually the birds will give up (for this to work the eggs can't be thin shelled). Then you reintroduce nestboxes but also change the nests so the habit doesn't return — e.g. elevate them, make them darker, etc.

I reckon predators and thin eggshells are the two main reasons why chickens learn to eat their eggs. Predators break eggs in the nest and hens soon associate nestboxes with yummy treats. Thin eggshells are very easily broken and start the habit off.

Apparently lack of protein is the third common reason.

Good luck,
Erica

 

[kscottjoyce]

I tried hot sauce with a hen and it made no difference at all. I did start giving more calcium to the hens and the eggs became harder and the hen gave up on breaking them. I was getting scratch marks on the eggs for a very short time but that is better than the egg being eaten.

 

[indio]

I find that they always give the egg a little poke after they lay it. If it cracks, then they keep going. On the other hand, if something gets their attention they run out of the nest box as quickly as possible to see what it is and that distracts from the egg poking. My hens have taken to doing an obstacle course as part of their morning workout so they are on the express laying program.

 

[Judy]

Chickens don't have taste receptors for capsaicin. Load up your feed with cayenne and watch what happens -- they pay no attention. Some people do this as a wormer -- though I've never seen any research indicating this works.

I don't know of anything that works dependable besides rollaway nests, though hadn't heard of the bare room thing before. Wood eggs or golf balls might work if they're not too determined and they happen to peck at the right egg.