Oh no I have an egg eater!

[redhd077]

Help! One of my chickens that I hatch this spring has decided she really likes eatting eggs. What can I do to break this bad bad habit? I don't want to get rid of her and I don't eat my chickens. She is super friendly too! Any ideas??

 

[ChickiKat]

Sorry to hear that. And you won't like my answer... We had to dispatch our egg eater.

 

[Lucretia]

Maybe you could try separating her for a while? If you keep her somewhere where you can see her better, maybe you can snatch any eggs she lays before she gets them. And then the other eggs would be safe, too.

I wonder if it's a habit that you can break, if you can keep her from doing it for several days?

Good luck!

 

[humpbacks1962]

Some say that placing wooden decoy eggs in the nest helps break the habit...
But once they start you have to separate that chicken from the rest immediately, or there goes your eggs!

 

[Mtn Margie]

Sometimes they really need some extra protein and so they start the egg eating bit. Try feeding her meat scraps and see if that helps any.

 

[redhd077]

Well Im not 100% sure which hen it is (i have a pretty good idea tho) Also if it was a protein issue whouldn't all of the chickens do it? They all eat the same. I was wondering if they are doing it because they are board. They didn't do it until they had to stay in. ( they are free range, but now that its winter they don't go out) What kind of fun things and i put in their coop to help with the boardom?

 

[Fiddlehead]

Try Pecker Wrecker, just be careful when you google it! My chickens loved it when they were bored last winter.

I had a hen pecking a hole in her eggs, we just took the eggs ASAP and she stopped doing it with in a week. It started as soon as she started laying again after having 3 chicks. I thought maybe she was looking for more chicks!

 

[Pele]

I've actually heard that you can blow out eggs, and fill them with mustard. Chickens haaaaaaaate mustard. It pecks the egg, gets a mouthful of yuck, and decides eggs are of the devil

.

 

[redhd077]

Fiddlehead thanks for that warning! i will look it up. Pele i had hear hot sause. Maybe i will give it a try!

 

[BlazeJester]

Hanging a head of cabbage in the run is a technique to keep them from pecking each other, so maybe that would work for boredom. I'd probably do a quarter or eighth at a time, skewered through with a wire coathanger and hung where they have to work to get at it. My friend was just given a "chicken toy" that is beads on ribbon... we'll see if that works

Edited to add: Chickens are insensitive to capsaicin so hot sauce probably won't work. Mustard oil is different and from what Pele said, it sounds like they are probably sensitive to that.