soft shell or egg eater?

[ash10383]

I have 11 golden buff hens (6 1yr olds , 5 2 yr olds). about 3 times a week one of my nesting boxes and other eggs in the box are super messy and once in a while a small piece of shell stuck on one of the other eggs in the box. So I am assuming an egg was broken in there. What would you guess happened? a hen laid an egg w/ extremely soft shell so she ate it or someone ate an egg? it doesn't happen everyday but several times a week.
They always have access to oyster shell.
Last fall I sometimes used to get an egg that was uniquely shaped and sometimes had a very thin shell (like broke it just picking it up. I haven't seen one of those eggs since the older hens went thru molt last fall.
thoughts? TIA

 

[tadpole98]

if there is a piece of shell stuck to them they are eating them. also, if they were soft shelled your birds would have something wrong with them.

do you know how to blow an egg?
blow an egg, and replace the insides with mustard. chickens hate mustard. Put it in the nesting box that has the eggshells in them. (and dont forget to mark the egg) when the chicken eats it she will be in for an unkind surprise.

collect the eggs as many times as you can. once every one or two hours.

there are tons of threads on here with ideas to break egg eaters. It has to be broken, this behavior will teach all the other chooks to eat eggs and what a time that will be!

 

[UrbanFarmerGirl]

Sometimes (maybe once every month or so) I find that too. There might be a bit of shell, or yolk, and the other eggs are sticky. We have 7 chickens. They don't peck at eggs, but I think sometimes they either lay a very thin/brittle shelled egg, or one of them steps on an egg when they are in the nest box, and one breaks. If they see a broken egg they will flock to it and eat it, so it could just be that. Also, I have had chickens occasionally lay soft eggs. Not normally, but maybe a few times in a year. They tend to be the same ones who lay brittle/odd shaped eggs, and I notice the soft eggs especially when they are just starting to lay, or when they have been off laying for a long time and are just resuming. The soft ones tend to look like a ping pong ball with a leathery shell, and break open. The other chickens will eat the inside of these, but not the leathery shell - so I think you would find evidence such as a soft hollow shell if they were laying soft eggs.

 

[ash10383]

Quote:
I guess that's why I'm not sure what's happening, there is very little - no remains from this egg, just sticky/dirty reamaining eggs (usually just one is really bad and the others have a little on them) but usually no large chunks of hard shell or soft leathery shell