Mystery solved....maybe

chicknmania

Free Ranging
18 Years
Jan 26, 2007
6,336
1,935
602
central Ohio
Lately, over the past couple of weeks, we have had a case of missing eggs. For a while I thought it was just cause of the weather, but it would be unusual to find no eggs at all. Did some research this morning on the website here cause I suspected one or more egg eaters after finding the remains of an egg. I was interested to see that a lot of posts re egg eaters are in the fall. I just realized this is when the bug /frog/mouse, etc population goes away and when free ranging is no longer attractive to our flock. So I suspect protein cravings and boredom, as these are all birds we've had for a while, and egg eating has never been a real big problem for us. I read that black oil sunflower seeds and catfood are good sources of protein, but I've heard pros and cons about catfood, and ours won't eat the dry kind. They haven't had any sunflower seeds for a while, but not all of them like them. Is there any kind of commercial feed that has extra protein? Is it ok to give catfood and how much is too much? I guess I could just go buy up all the mealworms I can find...? We have tried going out to collect eggs frequently but never seem to be soon enough...so I'm guessing whoever lays em is eating them too; probably more than one hen. And, I'm begiinning to suspect one of my favorite roos, though I haven't caught him yet.
 
I boil or scramble eggs for them at least once a week. Bologna works also, and shreddred cheese. they love it all!!
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I don't have any eggs to boil for them!
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We have given them cooked eggs before and also cheese, ours love it too, but that kind of stuff has always been very occasionally as treats. Since we haven't had this problem to this degree before, I think we will try the sunflower seeds mixed with their food again, cause we've used that in the past, and also maybe some turkey or game fowl food..we give them leftovers or table scraps when we have em, but we have three teenagers, so we don't have too many leftovers!
 

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