Laying on the roost and egg eating

[gophergirl44]

So I've had my new hens home for just over 24 hours and I'm a first timer! I hit panic mode tonight when this whole ordeal happened:
The first day I had them home they would not go in the coop so I added a roost in the run. My Americauna hopped up there as it got dark and layed her egg. Luckily it fell into the sand and didn't break. Yay! My first egg! Well tonight I went out around the same time and low and behold she did it again! BUT, the second it hit the ground a few of the hens ran to it and ate it! One of my RIR's got to it first then they all joined in! Needless to say I was freaking out that they all just turned into egg eaters! There were 4 other eggs layed today with no issues before this happened. A couple of the eggs were even laid in the run by the RIR's and they didn't bother them then. I have fake eggs in the nest boxes and I pulled 2 eggs out of there today so at least they are using them now and I'm hoping that will be the trend. My solution for my roost laying hen is to take the roost out of the run around dusk. Now that they are going in the coop to lay I'm hoping they will use the roosts in there as well. Now my fingers are crossed that tomorrow they forget all about that egg they chowed on! I'm really hoping it was just the sound of it dropping that grabbed their attention to it and I have no more issues....what do you all think?

 

[Judy]

Sometimes you have to hand place them in the coop at dusk for a few days til they get the idea that is the place to sleep. As for eating a broken egg, I promise you they will do that any time one gets broken. It's not the same as egg eating, at all. In egg eating, they purposefully break the egg to eat it. Some old timers don't believe the one leads to the other, and will throw a really poopy or damaged egg on the floor of the coop, intending to break it, so they will eat it, without the flock ever turning into egg eaters.