My new hens are eating their eggs!

[TarheelBirdy]

Got six new hens from a friend who was cleaning out their commercial laying house. Put them in the coop and were getting no eggs. So, I put a camera in the coop and see that they are eating the eggs! We are so baffled, because after they eat them, there is absolutely NOTHING left. NOTHING.

HELP! What's your advice?? I've never experienced this before.

 

[klmclain1]

er.... maybe one of those nest boxes where the egg rolls out of the box to a place that is not accessible to the hen? I've seen descriptions and plans on this forum somewhere!

 

[TarheelBirdy]

Cool! Never heard of that, so thank you! I'll look into it.

 

[Judy]

Here's one thread on rollaway nests:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=464610

The traditional cure for this is to cook the chicken. People try various tricks but they don't often work from what I've read here.

 

[Okie Amazon]

Get some oyster shell to give them. It sounds like they are calcium deficient. Our BOs that we bought a few months ate a few of their eggs, but after giving them a free choice supply of oyster shell, they haven't eaten anymore eggs.

 

[gettinaclue]

I had a similar problem.

I would go to collect my eggs and find they had been "tasted"....so I put the wooden eggs in there with them. They stopped "tasting" the eggs they laid.

After a while it began again, but this time, there was actual eatting going on instead of the peck of "tasting". I found out which one was doing it, isolated her with 3 wooden eggs for about a week. I made sure to collect her eggs as soon as a possibly could to make sure she couldn't eat it - checking several times a day for it.

I never had a problem after that.

I don't know what to tell you about all of them doing it though. Isolating would be a rather moot point. I say, just throw some wooden eggs in the nest boxes and try to get their eggs asap.

Good luck.

 

[akcharlie1960]

Blow an egg out of it's shell and fill with mustard then put it back in the nest. They hate mustard and learn quick. I read this on here a while back.