Someone is laying an egg from the roosting perch - can I fix this?

[calicokat]

Several times now I've gone in to open the coop in the AM (around 8am or so) and found an egg on the ground below the roosting perch. Most of the times it's broken and eaten or being eaten. Once I got to it before the girls got up, and it was still intact. It's a brown egg, and I suspect I know which RIR is laying it, but how on earth can I make this stop?

On my days off I'm in the coop pretty often, collecting eggs and checking on the girls. I've read about a way to break the egg eating and I'll try that if it continues. But I'm just baffled about how to get her to quit laying an egg "in her sleep" off the perch.

 

[Kittymomma]

It's always been pullets in their first weeks of laying when I've had that happen. Mine have all figured it out after a couple of weeks. I think it's just another little glitch that takes a bit of time to get sorted out.

 

[nikischicks]

Mine are over a year now and it still happens. Usually its ones that have a very thin shell but sometimes its a nice hard one. Only once did one actually sit on the perch without falling off first. That looked funny. Every once in a while I can find ones that have fallen that havent broken, even if they are cracked I give them to the dogs or just open it and let the girls have them.

 

[PunkinPeep]

If you know which one it is, and it keeps happening every night - like she doesn't figure it out - i would try just putting her in the nest box - and finding a way to block her in during the night. Then once she lays in the nest box, she should figure it out.

Hopefully she'll just figure out what's going on and start heading to the nest box instead of dropping it off the roost.

I would wait a week or so before trying my suggestion about locking her in.

 

[calicokat]

She's a year old, not a new one. And she laid all through the winter too, so it's not like she's just starting back up or getting into the swing of it.

I guess the hard part is that it's once or twice a week, but not any regular routine.

Niki - you don't have trouble with the chickens breaking eggs in the nest and eating them after you've fed them these eggs?

I've found one now and then broken and eaten in the nest (maybe 2 or 3 times a month), so I really, really don't want to do anything that might encourage this really bad habit.

 

[nikischicks]

mine wont break it to eat it but if there is one in the nest that is thin shelled, always a ee egg, and it gets stepped on then it gets eaten. they freaking love to eat them.

 

[calicokat]

I need to pay more attention to see if the ones they are eating are soft shelled, or if they are pecking them open.