Mean chicken

[meamiah]

I have two red star chickens and 1 white leghorn. The white leghorn is very mean to the other two, today I watched her go peak and bother one of the stars as she tried to lay. I went and shooed her away until the star laid her egg, but she got very noisy with me. Then after the star left the egg the leghorn went and moved it around and sat on it for a while? She doesn't normally do this and we have no rooster? The oddest thing is after two hours I went back out to the coop and the egg was gone? What happened to the egg and why is my leghorn acting so odd?

 

[Malibu99]

The only thing I can think of is that she went broody. I don't think you need a rooster in order for them to be broody. Though the egg dissapearing is kind of odd, could she have possibly moved it?

 

[meamiah]

I looked all over the coop area because we clipped there wings not long ago and let them have a whole gated off area, but nothing? She has been acting so odd lately, she can get out of her area at times too so she is hiding her own eggs from us. I have been told they eat their eggs at times but there's no mess either?

 

[Den in Penn]

Have you found the eggs the leg horn is hiding? Sitting in the nest box is normal daily behavior. Has the eggs you get from the other two hens declined? The egg may have broken with the rough handling and they cleaned the mess up. They can do a thoroughly complete job cleaning up eggs. As to why she was acting that way. It sounds like she wanted to just sit in that nest, or she knew there would be an egg in the nest and wanted it.

 

[meamiah]

No I never found the egg and my two red stars stopped laying for a few days before this whole deal. Thanks for the info.

 

[Pele]

Hrm... you know you may have a predator problem then. Disappearing eggs, stressed and freaked out hens, and drop in egg production are all warning signs of night-time raids.

I would suspect snakes,weasels, or raccoons if the egg disappeared entirely.