My chicken is eating it's own egg

[olly2611]

We had one of our girls who took up eating her eggs and she also started laying them in a different place. She cured herself because one day she found a clutch of eggs that we had unknowing fenced off for a few weeks - when we opened up that section of the garden she found her own eggs and went to have a feed of them. They had gone rotten! We could smell the rotten eggs all over the garden and she also had the smell on her feathers..... she never touched another egg! We think she much have pecked it - got a horrible taste of rotten egg and decided to never eat another one! She cured herself...!!

 

[netty noodles]

Difficult to STOP once hens get a taste for egg. Make sure u Check regularly for eggs and if pos dont leave them in Nest Box once laid,

 

[KeepOnClucking]

You could probably break them of it only if you are closely monitoring when they are laid, so that you can remove them quickly. My hens tend to lay on a pretty regular schedule this time of year, and they are so noisy when they do that it is hard to miss. Make sure that it is one of the hens first and not a blue jay or something like that. I know that a blue jay got to one of my eggs last week because they are smart and they learn the egg call that hens make after they lay, and I just happened to not be around.

 

[ChicknBits]

A little too late now; but I put wooden or ceramic eggs in each nesting box about 3 weeks before our pullets start to lay. They move them around, peck at them and after the newness is over, they leave them alone. When they start to lay actual eggs, they already know they don't crack, they're not food and not much fun to play with. They lay nice clean eggs and they don't bother them at all.
When you get your next batch of "babies", I would strongly suggest that you try this. We've had several batches of babies and this worked with every one of them.

 

[kittydoc]

It took us months (and video cameras) to figure out which hen was eating not only her own egg, but eggs from other hens, plus wrecking uneaten eggs covered with yolk and white from the ones that were eaten. My husband finally caught the suspect in the act. She was promptly culled and slowly stewed into two delicious meals. Our egg eater was at the very bottom of the pecking order, and I think this is why she did it--to get "even" in her little chicken brain. We feel a good brand of layer feed and supplement with oyster shell calcium, so she was not deficient (definitely not after she started eating all of those eggs--she did it for several months before we caught her). We installed new rollaway nest boxes, but that only worked when the hens used those boxes. Sometimes they laid on the henhouse floor, or on the floor of the coop in a nice nest of straw. The latter place is where hubby caught her in the act. She was just too hard core. Culling her stopped the problem completely, BTW. I hope you don't have to resort to that, but when you think about all the feed you waste on those lost eggs (both the ones eaten, and the others that you can't sell because they have been coated in yolk/albumen), it's a lot of money. We figured she was costing us $150 a year in lost egg sales. (We only sell to people in the neighborhood and hubby's coworkers, and we don't sell washed eggs. We do it the European way! Naturally clean eggs are sold, heavily soiled ones we keep, wash, and eat ourselves.)

 

[Chickenluver4]

She will not get sick, she must have pecked it, tasted it, and liked it. You should check for eggs many times of the day, replacing them with wooden eggs to break the habit. It should work out.

Good luck!

 

[funny farmer]

I couldn't figure out which one was doing it, so I filled up some plastic Easter eggs with spicy brown mustard and left them in the nest boxes. It seems to be working so far. I went from getting one or none every day, back up to 4-6 daily. I'm hoping it was a phase and they don't start in again.

 

[Rockythgr81]

I couldn't figure out which one was doing it, so I filled up some plastic Easter eggs with spicy brown mustard and left them in the nest boxes. It seems to be working so far. I went from getting one or none every day, back up to 4-6 daily. I'm hoping it was a phase and they don't start in again.

Also a good idea.

 

[haleybraden24]

Hey, my hen went broody (finally! so happy!) and the only downside is that she seems to be eating one or two of the eggs. I know because i have found the egg shells but there is no yolk or anything in it, just the shell. I also know it wasn't one of the others because no one wants to mess with Savannah ( that's the name of the broody hen! ). Savannah gets mad and tries to attack other chickens that come nearby. she is friendly when i pet her though.

 

[subhanalah]

Hey, my hen went broody (finally! so happy!) and the only downside is that she seems to be eating one or two of the eggs. I know because i have found the egg shells but there is no yolk or anything in it, just the shell. I also know it wasn't one of the others because no one wants to mess with Savannah ( that's the name of the broody hen! ). Savannah gets mad and tries to attack other chickens that come nearby. she is friendly when i pet her though. 

can you separate her from the other chickens? It sounds like she's breaking eggs trying to defend her nest?