I think I have an egg eater

[AZKat]

In the nest box today were six eggs. Five were perfect and intact. The sixth had a hole pecked in one end, and had been ripped open. I'm not sure if it was eaten since, as far as I could tell, the contents of the egg were in the nest box and on the remaining eggs. If it was an egg eater, why would she only go after one egg? If it isn't an egg eater, why would a chicken do something like that? Assuming that it is an egg eater, how can I catch the culprit, since they all lay in the same nest.

 

[damselfish]

Well, sometimes they seem to peck at eggs to see if they're acceptably hard. I get a few occasionally where someone has taken one peck, a nice round impact crater in the egg, but nothing eaten.

Also, I think sometimes accidents just happen. An egg gets stepped on in the nest or whatever. If there's a big mess, I don't think you probably have an egg eater because as you point out she would have eaten most or all. I've had that kind a mess here twice, too, but that's over the course of two years.

I'd just clean it up, go forward keeping a good count, and see what happens.