Multiple egg eaters, flock at 50% production

[Grandmas Coop]

What do you feed them? Sometimes chickens start eating eggs because they are proteins deficient. Also, are they pecking and cracking perfectly good eggs, or are they laying softer shelled eggs that are easy to eat (maybe that’s how it started)? Do they also have a cushioned area to lay?

YES, that is exactly what I was thinking, A layer pellet is a consistent balance and an extra dish of cal.

My hens eat eat eggs occasionally. Usually one breaks, and they eat it. A while back it started happening again, and I wondered what was making them do it, I decided to clean everything out of the nesting boxes, and what was in the bottom was a build up of egg and bedding. I cleaned everything with a hose, and scrubbed it off replaced with ample sweet grass hay, and they seem to stop. I also gathered the eggs religiously for a few days, and praised them.

and this, too, one breaks, and they eat it.

 

[SusanMc]

How many hens do you have? Do they ever lay outside of their boxes? How often is occasionally? And what percentage should I tolerate? On days that I check regularly I get half!

I have 13 hens, and egg eating usually happens if the eggs have been left overnight for whatever reason. My hens use 3 nest boxes and I usually get 8 eggs if I’m lucky, per day. My main flock is past 2 years, now. Yes sometimes they do lay outside, their proper nests, my EE/ISA brown cross got of the run for 2 weeks before I found the escape route. My girls stay in until noon, or 1 pm, then free range til dusk. My customers at the time were getting frustrated…once my favourite hen aptly named pecky, pecked a perfectly laid egg. She did get a scolding, but it probably didn’t do any good. Cleaning and filling the nest boxes with hay helped the most. Sometimes I place lavender in the nest boxes too.

 

[Celeste Villegas]

What do you feed them? Sometimes chickens start eating eggs because they are proteins deficient. Also, are they pecking and cracking perfectly good eggs, or are they laying softer shelled eggs that are easy to eat (maybe that’s how it started)? Do they also have a cushioned area to lay?

Yes, you may be right as they also eat each’s feather too. I did switch to grower feed a few days ago.

 

[Celeste Villegas]

I really appreciate all the helpful advice.
I think I tried all of the suggestions and I want to follow up about it.
So after a few weeks of switching to higher protein grower feed and adding oyster shells
(the layer feed claimed to have oyster shell in it so I stopped buying it)
The eggs are noticeably stronger and there have been less offenders and many more eggs collected. They still pluck out each other’s feathers, but not as much. I also gave them some dried meal worms which may have helped. I bought some ceramic eggs because the golf balls weren’t fooling them.
I was already collecting eggs frequently, but the decoy eggs seemed to help. The decoys were almost a little too convincing and I had to keep telling my husband and boys to put them back in the nesting boxes

Someone suggested roll away boxes. I found a great video on YouTube that allowed me to use my existing boxes and just add paint trays from the hardware store. I covered the reservoir part of the paint tray so when the eggs rolled down, they couldn’t get to the eggs. Unfortunately, even with decoy eggs they decided that this set-up was not to their liking and started laying under their ladder. A few chickens did lay on the trays if I put felt material in the bottom to cover the hard surface, but yuck it got really messy fast. And a few still either broke or pecked the eggs even after laying in my DIY set up. After a week I abandoned the DIY roll away set up with the paint trays. I would like to try to either improve my rollaway set-up or eventually buy some. Does anyone know how to keep them clean and also comfortable for the hens?

The simplest solutions were by far the most helpful. Today I got rid of two hens that didn’t change their behavior. So I hope a combination of things solves my egg eating problems and most of my flock can be spared. Elevating the nesting boxes so that the hens couldn’t see the eggs as they walked by really helped slow down the problem too. I have thought about putting curtains in front of the opening to the nesting boxes, but it seems like they might jump on top of the eggs if they can’t see them and break them.
If anyone has a lucite idea a good set up that they want to share, I’d live to see it. Thanks again everyone for your help.