Here I am again looking for sound advice for a mistake I made... I’m officially learning from the hard way. So a few months ago I had a hen that was laying super thin eggs. They were fragile. After several broke various ways I would just chuck them out of frustration/convenience around the coop. Well many chucks later some hens found the broken eggs, ate what they found and got a taste of yummy raw egg. At first it seemed harmless. I bought oyster shell to help with the egg shell and googled is it ok for chickens to eat raw eggs? Of course google said it was fine. So needless to say, my eggs got stronger, I was no longer chucking a daily treat and I was left with a hen determined to get her own treat. Now about two hundred cracked eggs later (I have 45 hens) I’m going crazy from this lesson I’m learning the hard way. This hen goes from egg to egg pecking until it can get the yummy treat inside. So picture this I got 22 eggs today and 5 of them had pecks that led to hairline cracks or cracks. I sell eggs and cannot sell eggs that have cracks. However, this is the first day she did not succeed in breaking an egg. Every day there is an egg mess all over my nesting box with eggs covered in the egg mess. It’s record breaking hot here in MD so the egg mess is practically cooked. I have tried everything but getting rid of the hen. Only cause I don’t know which hen it is or how to tell which one is doing it. I do think it’s only one because most of the egg is left there and most of the shell. At this point it seems like a boredom buster under those circumstances. Before this happened my eggs could go from nesting box to carton. Now they are a hot mess including the nesting box which I removed to get rid of the tight corner assuming it would help.
Any advice would be helpful and appreciated. I already know not to feed them raw egg as a treat...Lesson Learned.
Any advice would be helpful and appreciated. I already know not to feed them raw egg as a treat...Lesson Learned.