I have an egg eater.

[CATRAY44]

How much oyser shell would you put in the water?

 

[Andora]

Quote:
I didn't consider that. The shell is still there, it just has a pecked out spot in the side with almost (but not quite) of the yolk missing. My outdoor cat hangs out with the chickens a lot! I wonder if she would eat them...but I couldn't see her being able to crack them open easily. Hmm. Could it be a mouse or a squirrel? I don't know what else we would readily have that could sneak in and poke a hole in an egg and eat out the insides unless it's another wild bird or one of my ducks? The next time it happens I'll take a picture.

I have also noticed in our garage that something has been eating my black oil sunflower seeds. The bag is nearly gone and there are thousands of empty shells laying all over the ground and the shelf!

 

[OKbirdwatcher]

Hi! A newbie here and already with a crazy incident to tell about with our new pullets: 5 RIRs and 5 Black Australorps. We've only had them since late Tues. evening.

Wednesday afternoon we collected 7 eggs, Thursday, 6 eggs.

I collected 2 beautiful eggs about 9:30 this morning. Went back about an hour later to check again and found the girls in a frenzy! They were eating an egg!!! - all of them, as far as I could tell. Apparently an egg had been laid on the floor of the coop or maybe on the ledge in front of the nest boxes and had rolled off and broken on the floor. I really don't know - I missed out on that part.

Anyway, several of them were eating what I think must have been the white of the egg and one of the Reds had a big piece of the shell in her beak and went running out of the coop with it, yolk dripping all over and several other girls squawking and chasing after her. I kid you not. I was freaking out (although it was kinda humorous at the same time.) Things had been going so smoothly until then.

So I'm wondering...do I now have 10 egg eaters on my hands??? or was this maybe just a fluke, and not likely to be a recurring thing? Any ideas or similar experiences?

 

[Andora]

So today I cleaned out the coop, and I bleached the floor because the ducks made a huge disaster in there. I closed the bottom half of the coop door and left the top half of the door open so it could air out. I came out later and found an egg had been laid in there--a bird must have flown over the door to go in an lay an egg neatly in the corner.

It wasn't eaten, but it was cracked. I guess where it got laid on the bare wood floor?

I'm wondering now if the reason the eggs are getting eaten is because they are rolling out of the new nest boxes we made and cracking open, then a chicken is eating them.

OKbirdwatcher--If I were you I'd put a lot of golf balls or ceramic eggs in your nests to ward off any more egg eating excitement. I hope they don't do it again!