Missing eggs

[EggCentric]

To find out if you have a 2 legged predator, spread flour around the floor in front of the inside of the door. Either that, or you could rig up a booby trap. They sell little portable "Screamers" at radio shack. You set it up so if the door opens, it pulls the pin out and that little sucker will scream it's little mechanized head off!

 

[momoftwinsinwi]

Do they have oyster shells avail to them to eat? Only repeating what I've read here

 

[klnlehmann]

So, a chicken needs both those wonderful feeder pellets, corn for scratch, oystershells for calcium, maybe cat food for protien? Mine have been eating eggs for a while. I started recently trying to catch one of the hens in the act so I could figure out who she is. Nice to know that 30 sec is the amount of time I have to get there after an egg is laid. I might have to subdivide the hens again.

Oh, will the not eating hens start to eat if they get a taste of an egg??

 

[evaraye]

This is what I did...
I gave them grit from the feed store - I added a big handful of catfood to their laying pellets and cracked corn. After two days of this I found 6 eggs by noon. One egg was waiting for me at 7:30 am then when I came home at noon, there were 5 eggs... so I think the grit must be doing something... I hope this is the end of the egg eating episode... Thank God!
EVARAYE

 

[bigzio]

Increase the protein in their diet with treats like dry cat food and black oil sunflower seeds. (both around 30% protein)
Darken the nests by hanging material across the front and cutting a slit for the entrance, the hens will go in, but egg suckers can't eat eggs they can't see. Good Luck!

bigzio

 

[evaraye]

At noon I posted that we had collected 6 eggs... well it's 6:30 pm and we have a total of 10 eggs in one day... that means the hens were eating about 6 to 8 eggs a day... the grit really works and I did add the cat food to their feed. The guy at the feed store said they should slow down on the grit after a while... we live in South, South Louisiana - Erath... It's almost gumbo time... my husband is so glad he didn't have to cook chicken gumbo... we are so proud of our hens... I'm blessed that it wasn't to difficult to stop them from eating their eggs... If anyone else has this problem... try the grit and cat food... Thanks to everyone who gave me the suggestions...

Have a great day!

 

[WindyOaksYokes]

Is that moist cat food or bagged cat food?????

 

[klnlehmann]

I believe they are talking dry cat food.

After telling a friend this we are wonderring if we should just include left over meat and things with the other fruit and vegetable scraps they get. (or maybe we shouldn't feed them these at all?) but if allowed total freedom they have been known to really till under fresh vegetable gardens, especially tomatoes!

Also, more of a moral question, do you read labels of the cat food to make sure it is poultry free?

:

. Whoever knew that a gift of 3 leghorn from a school project chickens would have led to this!!

 

[evaraye]

I just give my hens some of my cat's food... Meow Mix... I'm sure any kind would be OK... they don't particularly care for the cat food that much... they didn't eat it all... but they ate up the grit like crazy! I'm sure the problem was that they needed calcium and were getting it from the egg shells... I sure hope and pray that the problem is solved. And grit is pretty cheap... $7 for 50 pounds... I'm just going to put some out every morning for them... I hope this solution works for others. If something changes, I'll post it here.

 

[EmilyChickens]

We just had a 5ft black snake last night eat 7 of our hatching eggs. How big is your coop? He could be curled up somewhere and you cant see him. We have been down on egg population for a while and we finally found him. Hope this helped. ;-)