My chickens like to eat... my fingernails?

[Atlas The Chicken Tender]

I have never encountered a more interesting and challenging flock than the one I and my husband currently have. When we first got them, we were concerned about cannibalism because one of our birds killed a flockmate by pecking at her tail. That's stopped entirely now, but now my birds have begun engaging in a very confusing (and very ouchie to me!) behavior. Any time I try to feed some of them treats from my hands, they'll peck at my long fingernails! One of them even ate a small chunk of nail a month or so ago. Usually, I wouldn't mind so much because sometimes chickens just peck at things out of curiosity, but this is going beyond that to the point where the main bird doing this is now teaching the others her bad behavior. I don't want to cut my nails as they're important to me, but I also don't want my birds injured by ingesting something they're not supposed to. So! I plan to start putting some peck-no-more goo on the ends of my fingernails when I care for them so that hopefully they'll get the message. Wish me luck!
(Pictured: the culprit, black and white, codename Esmerelda, and the one she taught to be a nail-nibbler, black and brown, codename Pepper)

 

[nuthatched]

What's their diet?

 

[chicChickChick]

Gloves

 

[Atlas The Chicken Tender]

What's their diet?

20% all flock feed, corn, wheat, and bugs as regular treats, dandelion greens and other fruits and veggies as we can afford them, and some oyster shells they can free feed on. They've been going nuts for the oyster shells lately.

 

[CloneFly]

What's their diet?

Gloves

I read these two replies in immediate sucession and had a moment of extreme confusion

 

[Atlas The Chicken Tender]

I read these two replies in immediate sucession and had a moment of extreme confusion

It's a beautiful coincidence that makes for a great joke though!