shell less eggs and egg eating chickens

[jomomma]

Hi everyone. I acquired a mixed flock of 13 older birds six weeks ago. The first week I found what seemed to be yolk in the nest boxes two times. I attributed this to stress from the move, maybe they had soft shells and ate them, shell and all.
Recently I installed manure boxes and two days ago I saw what was left of egg yolk in the manure box and white stuck to the mesh cover. Today there was an egg smashed into the manure box with a paper thin shell, like construction paper, and the girls were eating it. Later today I found an egg with hole pecked into the top of it and white was oozing out.
Have my chickens developed a taste for eggs? I feed a 20% organic feed and scratch along with oyster shell and kitchen scrapes. They get plenty of clean well water and have a snug, secure coop and run with filtered sunlight all day. Any input is appreciated.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ps020
see table 2

Doesn't sound like they are definitely "egg eaters" yet- I'd try to wait it out but there are techniques to discourage egg-eating you can look up on BYC like filling eggs with mustard (to make it taste bad) or food coloring to see whose beak is stained (for culling the egg eater).

But I have seen the occasional soft shell and the occasional eggshell with the hole poked at the top (contents still inside) myself here and there so I am very slow to judge a hen as an egg eater.

Once I thought I had narrowed it down to one hen and even moved her away from the flock with some buddies, only to find that she stopped doing it. It is good to separate an egg-eater from the others, since they learn and it spreads like wildfire through the flock.

 

[jomomma]

Thank you for the reply and the link. Much appreciated.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

Thank you for the reply and the link. Much appreciated.

Oh I forgot to say that the mustard is supposed to taste bad and is supposed to teach them not to eat eggs. The food coloring is just to identify the bird. (I edited my above post.)

You are welcome!!!