New to BYC and raising chickens

Hi everyone

We are new to the entire chicken process. My brother in law started raising chickens last year. We enjoyed watching him so much that we decided to raise our own. We purchased 8 sexed RIR chicks in April. However upon arrival the box that they were shipped in was badly damaged. We had 3 chicks smashed beyond recognition and another in such shock I did not think she would survive. the 5th was found at the bottom of the box she appeared smashed and dead as well only to discover while I was tending to the living that she rose from the dead..The company was fantastic and replaced 5 chickens no questions asked. I am happy to say that the 2 strugglers are healthy and alive though I have concerns as to if the one at the bottom of the box will be able to produce eggs. I did tell her if she lived she would have a home until she died. So we now have 10 RIR chickens, 1st 5 are 23 weeks and the 2nd 5 are 20 weeks.

We live in a small rural neighborhood so we don't let them free range, 1 because we have a nasty neighbor and the other reason we have had bobcats and coyotes (all seen on our game cam). They have a nice coop and a run.

We got our first egg 8/29, we were SO Excited!!! My husband and I were like children at Christmas. At the moment we only have 1 girl laying eggs but I know the others are soon to follow.. The issue is this morning I discovered a chicken (not sure if she was the egg layer or not) eating an egg (or what was left of it) in the nesting box. We keep a spotless coop (I am a bit of a neat freak) We did not have an egg yesterday so I went looking around the coop and found remnants of egg shells in the coop.

I stumbled upon BYC while searching about information on chickens eating their own eggs. I found this site to have tons of information and good suggestions. I am waiting for the feed store to open so I can run out and get the oyster shells in hopes that this will help with the issue as well as find some ceramic eggs or worse case steal some of my husbands golf balls to put in the boxes to help discourage this bad behavior.

I love my girls. They greet me at the door of the coop each day I change their water or peek on them. Very social. My dogs (2 English Springer Spaniels) are getting use to them. One got a bit to close and had her nose pecked so I don't think she will be so curious in the future.

Funny, our kids are grown and moved out and we know have the responsibility of chickens. I find it relaxing though. My friends think we have lots our minds.

I am hoping to break the egg eating soon and look forward to reading about all of the others posts and stories about chickens.