Potential egg eating?

[dragonchild23]

My youngest hens just started laying a day ago and i noticed one of the eggs had a tiny hole in it. My question is, is this the beginning of egg eating or just an overly curious hen examing what she had just laid?

 

[lollimama]

I hope not! I just had to deal with an evil egg eater...at first I thought maybe it was the egg dropping and hitting the hard floor of the next box (since they would kick all the shavings out) so I put a carpet sample in there which did seem to help. You might try that to see if it helps your situation. However, mine didn't end well - after finding several eggs laid by the perpetrator that had holes in the end and were cracked a little bit (the membrane was usually not broken) - the hole was on the pointy end by the way - I finally went out one morning and literally found her with egg on her beak, in front of an empty egg shell.

This particular chicken already had some strikes against her (pecking/plucking etc.) so she was a gonner. If I were you though, I'd make sure to monitor the situation closely. I think you can also get a cool roll away nest box if it turns out to be a real problem, we're thinking of doing that just to avoid the issue in the future.

Good luck!

 

[dragonchild23]

Well I have a tendency to gather eggs while they are still warm from being laid. At least when I have a day off from work. Plus I check the nests first thing when I get home as they seem to prefer laying in the afternoon or early evening. As this was the second egg she had ever laid i just want to keep a problem from happening. All my hens are really sweet and docile so this would be the first problem I would ever have from them. Other than finding one of my australorp pullets was actually a cockrel, a very noisy cockrel. lol.

 

[Momagain1]

how do we figure out who is eating the eggs with 30 chickens????

seriously I cant figure out who is laying the eggs..let alone eating the eggs...

we've had several that have holes at the end of them..thinking they were just dropped a bit when they were laid..
but we've also found one completely opened egg...

so we are going to put padding down on the nest boxes just in case...

BUT with 30 chickens..unless I watch them 24/7 I wont be able to know right??

ugh..

 

[heatherkh]

Did the hole look like it was the result of pecking, or perhaps could it be an abnormality in the shell?

Here's a handy list of shell defects that I found on BYC when I was investigating some creasing in one of my hen's egg shells.

 

[colebarnhart]

Maybe it was from a snake tooth or a paranormal event from a ghost chic trying to pip it's way out.