I suspect my hens are eating their own eggs

[Linnalinna]

I have 9 girls and one boy---3 girls and the boy are from last year, and the rest 6 girls (Americana) were hatched in Feb this year. The three older ones are good layers. the younger ones are not as good. for a couple of weeks now, I can get 1 to 0 eggs per day. I saw some broken shells in the coop today. I think they are eating their own eggs. what should I do? Help!!

 

[AngelzFyre]

You'll have to watch closer to see if you can catch who did it if they are eating their own eggs.

Be sure first though that the ones you are getting have shells that are hard like they are supposed to be, and that you have enough shavings or whatever you use to cushion your nest boxes. Sometimes if they aren't getting enough nutritionally or calcium<oyster shell> the eggs will break when they lay them and they will eat them if they do break.

Do you have enough nest boxes for the number of hens you have laying so that they aren't trying to crowd in and breaking the eggs?

Hopefully others will have more ideas too.

 

[Linnalinna]

thanks! I have three nests but they all crowd into only one, the most inside one. I don't know how to encourage them to use the other two. I use the outdoor carpet in the coop and it is pretty soft.
I work during the day and can only watch them during the weekend. If I catch the criminal, what should I do? Chickens have a brain size of the pea and not sure how well behavior modification would work. Any suggestions are welcome!!

 

[AngelzFyre]

I've culled the ones I've caught eating the eggs regularly! You can't break them from doing it that I've seen. Some do try wooden or stone eggs in the nest to see if they can deter it but unfortunately that didn't work for me. I've only had 2 that ever did it though. They were both EE's.

With the nest boxes, they usually will pick one out of all of them that they prefer. Can you take the partitions out and let them use it as one entire box? That may help.

Btw: