***How to deal with chickens eating their eggs***

[smk2010]

What ever is getting mine is leaving nothing behind...

 

[Louieandthecrew]

Hmmm... I really don't know! But this idvice is great. I got one more egg today through the run and I was about to get out of the fence when my hen pecked the egg. It didn't break and I got out with it whole so I know that it isn't my chickens getting to my eggs. probably rats! We know that we have those!

 

[BlackBart]

Quote:
X 2 or hot pepper sauce

You poke a small hole in each end, shake the egg. Blow on one end like your filling a balloon. When empty, put tape over the hole on one end. Use a small funnel to fill it from the other end. Put a piece of tape over that end.
Leave it the nest box until the offending hen eats it.
It usually is the last egg they ever eat. You will also know which one is eating the eggs too. They walk around with their mouth open for a day or so.

Rats will roll eggs away. Ravens will enter the hen house and take eggs from the nest boxes.

 

[Louieandthecrew]

Thanks! Great advice!

 

[Beekissed]

I can always tell if an egg has been broken accidentally by a hen in the nest as I find traces of yolk on the other eggs or in the nesting material. This doesn't mean whichever hen ate it is a chronic egg eater. Actually, I will throw broken eggs out on the grass and let my girls clean it up and I never have a problem with my eggs being actively eaten. The only time they will eat an egg is if the egg is broken open in front of them.

I've been keeping chickens for many years and have never had an "egg eater"....I have no idea why others do. Maybe because my chickens free range and have many other choices of activities and food? I'm not sure. My nest boxes are standard issue galvanized, so no real magic there.

I would tend to believe that an egg that was broken open and the contents eaten has not been done by a chicken...they simply LOVE egg shells. I would be thinking rat.

 

[10 pollos]

I had this problem a few weeks ago, I did everything! I put a marble egg and a wooden egg in the box. I hollowed out an egg and filled it with mustard (the spicy kind)
I yelled and got mad and threatened to make chicken soup! What I did was try to collect the eggs as soon as they laid them. Going out there 4 or 5 times before noon.
I figured the longer the eggs sat there, the more likely they were to eat them. They eventually stoped eating the eggs. Every now and then I will find an empty shell but for the most part they dont do it anymore.Good Luck.

 

[Louieandthecrew]

Thanks