Persistent egg eaters

[EmmaDonovan]

The culprits are two white leghorns. They literally stand right at the nest boxes and wait for hens to come out then run in and eat the eggs. We have cameras on the nest boxes but they're eating the eggs before I can even get out there (I have to go through a locked door, a locked gate, and the locked coop door).

There are wooden eggs in each nest box. The hens free-feed oyster shell and 18% protein layer pellets by Scratch & Peck. We put 20% protein starter mash in two treat dispenser toys once a week and also use that occasionally as scratch.

We're in the desert so there's little to nothing for them to forage. They get grubs once a week. We toss in a handful of frozen peas, frozen berries, etc. a few times a week. As every day greens, they get a little wheat grass, oat grass, spinach or broccoli. Dandelions grow wild on our property and we feed them those when in season.

They have ~18 sq ft per hen and the runs are cluttered with boxes, boards, tunnels, toys, bricks, palm fronds, branches, roosts, line-of-sight breaks, swings, etc.

My roommate who can build anything is keen on building some rollout nest boxes but she's busy right how adding an extension to the run.

These two leghorns have been a royal PITA (never getting leghorns again!) but they're also my best layers. We tried filling egg shells with mustard and that didn't deter them. In another thread someone suggested dish detergent but wouldn't that make them sick? I want them to lose interest in the eggs but I don't want to make them ill.

Is there something else we can fill egg shells with?

 

[thecatumbrella]

My roommate who can build anything is keen on building some rollout nest boxes but she's busy right how adding an extension to the run.

This is the way. Be sure to make the part the egg rolls into chicken proof. They have those long, snake-like necks and will reach in after them.

Unfortunately, once they start eating eggs, it can be hard to stop them. I mean, why would they, right? That's good food!

Hope your roommate can get something done. Aside from that (and making sure nutrition/protein/calcium is up to standard), it's usually the soup pot for birds like this.

 

[Perris]

As a simple and quick option to try while you wait (and certainly before doing something more drastic like culling them from the flock), you could try giving them some proper animal protein: a tin of sardines, dairy products, leftovers from your table if that's allowed where you live, for example. All the foods you listed that you give them are vegetable, and maybe they just really need something missing from them, and present in eggs and other animal foods. Worth a try surely?

 

[EmmaDonovan]

Now that's interesting idea. I always feel a bit guilty they don't get the bugs and other critters that chickens have in non-desert landscapes.

Five weeks ago I started a mealworm farm so I will have live worms for them soon. I have fed them tuna and salmon in the past during molts and when they had fowl pox, but I can certainly do more of that. Thanks for the suggestion!

Edit: they eat the shells - everything. What if I coated an (empty) egg shell with something like tea tree oil? I've heard of people dabbing that on the backs of hens' heads to prevent other chickens from pulling their feathers out. Is it a natural repellant? Can chickens smell it? Would a nest box with an egg covered in tea tree oil deter other hens from laying in that nest box (obviously I don't want that)?

 

[EmmaDonovan]

As a simple and quick option to try while you wait (and certainly before doing something more drastic like culling them from the flock), you could try giving them some proper animal protein: a tin of sardines, dairy products, leftovers from your table if that's allowed where you live, for example. All the foods you listed that you give them are vegetable, and maybe they just really need something missing from them, and present in eggs and other animal foods. Worth a try surely?

I added Safe Catch sardines, tuna, and salmon to my Amazon order this month. Thank you for the suggestion.

Is it true that if you feed them too much fish, their eggs start tasting fishy? How much would you have to feed them for that to happen?

 

[pnw_urban_chix]

Are the culprits themselves still laying? Because maybe you could put them in a like 6x6 foot square pen in the corner of the run with food and water and keep them separated from the eggs, I have found that when I have had hens start eating eggs it is pretty important to collect eggs multiple times per day and clean out the nest box when it gets eggy, because if another hen starts eating them too then you have an even bigger problem. ( Although if they are waiting outside of the nest box that makes it tricky. ) Also confirming what @thecatumbrella said, I have a roll down nest box but the chickens can definitely reach down there, usually when my hens go broody and want more eggs to sit on they will snake their heads down under the hood and roll the eggs up in the crooks of their necks.

 

[Perris]

Is it true that if you feed them too much fish, their eggs start tasting fishy? How much would you have to feed them for that to happen?

No it is not. The molecule that creates the smell is TMA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimethylamine and it can be produced organically by many (all?) vertebrates: "It has long been recognized that symbiotic gut microbes in humans (9–11) and other vertebrates (12–14) generate TMA from choline and that this metabolic activity is exclusively microbial."
https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1215689109 Fish are vertebrates and they suffer it too when decomposing, rather than cause it. There is also an association with fatty liver disease, so the same high carb diets that cause that are more likely to cause it than are fresh or tinned fish in the diet.

When introducing your chickens to new foods it's best to offer little and often, I've found, until they decide for themselves that it's good for them, at which point you can offer as much as they want until they sate themselves, to take in whatever is in it that they've been missing, and they can be relied on to self-regulate thereafter, eating only as much of it as they need, and no more.

 

[BlueBaby]

I have Leghorn's and they aren't eating their egg's out there. I don't have the white Leghorn's though. They lay them and then leave. I did scramble up 9 of their smaller egg's tonight and started towards a batch of wet feed for tomorrow. The scrambled egg has the extra protein and it doesn't look like one of the nestbox egg's. Mixed in with the wet feed, they are also getting the other nutrients. I also add a bit of cayenne pepper too to help with egg yolk color.