I might have a chicken pecking eggs...

[dulcimer lady]

But I'm honestly not sure if that's what's happening. Last week on Wednesday, I asked my husband to go check for eggs for me and to take a sack with him to carry them in. He decided he didn't need to do that and he could just hold them all. Well, before he left the run he dropped one and they all descended upon it.

That was on Wednesday. Thursday and Friday passed with no problems. Then on Saturday I went to collect eggs and one egg had a hole in it and part of the egg had been strewn in one corner of the nest box. There was a second egg cracked as well, but then left alone, it's contents still there. I disposed of them both. Then this morning, I had one egg with a hole but none of the contents were out of it. As a matter of fact, the membrane beneath the shell was still intact. These were all in the same nest box.

So now I'm wondering if one of the chickens has figured out that eggs are food. But if so, why would it have left the eggs alone on Thursday and Friday? Also, why would it be pecking the egg but not eating any of the contents??

Maybe I'm just over reacting. I surely hope so. All my chickens look alike so I wouldn't even know where to start on finding the offending chicken to get rid of it.

If my husband had just *listened* to me....gah....

 

[Ridgerunner]

It is possilble you have an egg eating hen. I had one and she did not eat an egg every day.

It is possible you have something else eating eggs. Rats are usually my first guess as a suspected predator when you get damage like that. They will come out during the day, not just at night.

The hen stands up when she lays the egg, so if you have somethign sharp in the nest, like a nail sticking through or maybe a small stick, the egg is being punctured when it is being laid. That would explain why it happens sometimes but not all the time. If the egg is relatively thin-shelled but you have lumps of calcium in it, one of those lumps can break off and leave a hole. If your nest did not have enough bedding in it, I'd expect the egg to be cracked, not punctured.

The egg eating hen is what it really sounds like to me, but maybe not.

Good luck!

 

[dulcimer lady]

Well, I'm going to give it a few more days and see what happens. These are definitely punctures. I got some advice this morning to mix some cayenne pepper in a syringe with a little water, puncture the egg and inject the mixture. Put the egg in the nest box and leave it there. After 3 or 4 days, no more egg eating hens! We'll see how it works.