Is this possible?

[Robin'sBrood]

A few weeks ago I found a dirty egg with a hairline crack on the floor of my chickens' coop. I marked it with a Sharpie and put it in the nest box in hopes of attracting my girls back to the box to lay. It worked! I left that marked egg in the box and one day it was mysteriously gone. I thought my son must have accidentally collected it and my DH must have accidentally eaten it.

No one got sick so I just shrugged it off and didn't think about it again.

Well today I found out that my bantam girls had started hiding their eggs again when I came across SIX of their eggs hidden in the coop. One had a small dent in the shell so I stuck it in the nest box and closed the coop up for the day (nest box is outside of coop) so they would hopefully lay in the box again. I was outside just a bit ago and looked in the nest box and there was my BA's egg but the banty egg was gone. HUH?

Did my BA eat the banty egg, shell and all? There is no sign of egg in those clean pine shavings AT ALL? There is no yolk, or shell, or anything even resembling a broken egg in that nest box. Now I'm wondering if she ate the previous egg too.

 

[scooter147]

You, my friend, have an egg eater on your hands. Check the hens closely, the culprit usually has dried yolk on their wattles, earlobe or some other incriminating place.
I have seen hens peck a hole in an egg then pick it up and run off with it. This is what they could be doing and why you don't see yolk in the nest.
If you have shavings they could be eating the egg covered shavings, thus no evidence. I don't know if there is anything more chickens love then egg and will do amazing things once they learn the habit to eat them.

 

[98 gt]

itis starting to warm up, and here in the carolinas, black snakes eat eggs like cazy!! so, keep a watch out for them...

 

[Robin'sBrood]

Quote:
That's what I was afraid of. Hmmmm, I wonder which one it is.

I'll have to inspect those little faces tomorrow.

 

[ladybug4ut1]

I had oneof those in my laying pen and come to find out it was my rooster. I have had him out for 2 days and 1st day i got 4 eggs and toda i got 5 and there are 6 hens in there. So he is going to be booted

 

[Robin'sBrood]

It could be my roo too. Maybe that's why he's always making all that noise while the girls are laying their eggs, maybe he's announcing that his snack is being served!

I'll see if I can figure out what's going on tomorrow by putting a store bought egg in the nest box and scoping it out.

 

[lilbreeches]

Quote:
yeah, here too. you might make sure you don't have a snake eating those eggs.

 

[Emzyyy]

LOL we don't eat the eggs yet at our house because their so small and we only usually get 1 or 2 a day so I just feed them to the chickens, gona be a bad habit to break once I decide to.

 

[ChooksChick]

I use a tan golf ball to recommend a nest to my girls just so no eggs have to be risked. You could try that.

 

[luvmychicknkids]

Yes, probably an egg eater, but here is the problem. By placing a cracked egg there and leaving it, you are practically begging them to start eating their eggs! I always make sure any cracked egg gets removed immediately so they aren't tempted!!! Good luck.