Predator eating eggs?

[aprophet]

crows here were flying off with quail eggs and terrorizing my birds this has stopped happening recently

and the possums had a feast

 

[bailey'smama]

If it is a hen, I don't think she's bored. My chickens all free-range and have acres and acres to roam. If I catch her in the act, should she be culled from the flock?

 

[colebarnhart]

 

[chicken crazed 1o1]

Iv had hen by anacsident step on the while trying to lay 1

 

[SEMCNABB]

I had this problem and tryed everything I read, golf balls in next and so on. In the end had to cull. If you go out at night with a flash light and shine on the face you wil see egg on the beak, worked for me. I culled and am back up to 8 to 10 a day, i was down to 2 to 3.

 

[MiniBeesKnees]

bailey'smama Howdy Neighbor!! You are close, 15-16 miles.

I don't eat my eggs, I hatch them, or feed them to my four little dogs.
When I have too many to give the dogs...then I let the chickens eat them.
You'd think this would turn them into egg eaters, but it hasn't.

I let them collect in spots or nests they have been laid in hoping someone will go broody so I do not consider them fit for human consumption if anyone is wondering why I don't give them away.

Once in awhile...like today...I'll go collect what has been laid in the last week and set some in an incubator. And I'll feed some to the dogs.
I can recognize what breeds laid what eggs so I know that some of them I do not want chicks from. They are crossbreeds bred by my big cross rooster.
(Most of my purebreds are locked up separately)

But I'll have excess eggs...and I'm due to candle some and those not fertile I'll take out to the run too.
I drop the whole egg on this big flat rock out there and everyone comes running to eat them....shells and all.
It is very, very rare that I find yolk in a nest or where eggs have been laid so my feeding them to the chickens has not created a flock of egg eaters...not in my case anyway.
We are talking sometimes fifty or sixty chickens. I lose a lot more eggs to snakes.

I don't think my bunch put two and two together and to them there is a difference between the eggs they lay, and the ones I drop on the big flat rock.