sick to death of my egg eating birds!

[mchaos]

We have two coupes of chickens. One houses our old hens, a mixture of black sex link, barred rock, and a beautiful buff orpington rooster. The other houses our younger americana ladies and their man. Both pens have been quite naughty about egg eating. However the older girls got over their cannibalistic ways when I placed a golf ball or two in their nesting boxes. However, the americanas have been persistent in the egg munching in spite of golf ball placement. The only way to avoid losing all my eggs from them is to be out there every hour to collect. UGH. I have other things to do than to sit and wait on chickens all day, every day. I am ready to butcher the lot and start over entirely! Any suggestions?

 

[NanaKat]

What evidence convicts your birds of eating their eggs?
Are you finding no eggs or several broken shells?

If the egg shells are brittle and break as the hen leaves the nest, the birds will eat the exposed yolk and white.
Are you providing your young hens with oyster shell to build calcium?

When hens molt in the fall, calcium and proteins are spent growing new feathers. This affects the egg shells or simply reduces egg laying.

 

[raspeary]

I took an egg, and made a small hole and drained eggwhite and yolk then filled with hand soap and sealed hole with dental wax and put in nest box. Worked great for us they won't like taste of soap

 

[Heavacres]

We have run into this as well, but primarily when we housed different varieties together (the one breed, Barred Rocks, were more aggressive then the Red Dorkings and would always eat their eggs). This resolved when we put them in separate coops/stalls.
Others know better than me, I'm sure - the other post about supplementing is excellent and I have found to be very true. Also, we have had birds that seemed to eat more eggs when they were not getting outside very regularly - boredom?
All that being said, there is another potential solution if you can figure out some carpentry. You can slant the bottom of your nesting boxes enough to let the eggs roll down and then have a collection point that they roll into. The project is tricky, because they have to roll enough to move out of the way but not so fast that they break. We used pieces of carpet on top of slanted bottoms, with covers over the back collection areas. They weren't perfect and now we don't need them for the reasons above. Good luck!!
God bless you!

 

[Heavacres]

I took an egg, and made a small hole and drained eggwhite and yolk then filled with hand soap and sealed hole with dental wax and put in nest box. Worked great for us they won't like taste of soap

Nice solution - never heard of that! I think we're neighbors - we're east of the Capital Region. Take care!