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I will give you my 2 cents worth on this. Others may not agree but I have found it to work for me when I have the very rare egg eater. And believe me, with as many birds as I have this method has worked well for me in the past years.
Up the protein. It is a myth that they only eat their eggs because of low calcium intake. (One reason I could not continue classes at college. Scientific proof meant nothing to them!
) Most chickens rarely eat their own eggs for calcium. They just take it from other sources in their body, depleting those sources and eventually failing in health.
Put out oyster shell and see if that helps.
Countless times people ask me why their chickens continue to bust the eggs and eat them even with oyster shell available and layer as the main diet. Have you seen the amount of protein they put in layer? It is pitiful!
A chicken that is able to run loose on an acre or more with vegetation and bugs is getting way, way, way more protein from plant and animal matter!
Black oil sunflower seed has about 33% protein. Have you all seen how much they gobble that up? My chickens free range and still consume massive amounts of that seed.
Go buy a can of cheap tuna or mackerel or anything in the meat dept where the protein is higher than laying mash. Canned cat food is a favorite and even some dry cat food can have high amounts of protein but I hesitate to feed anything with added salt and commercial foods are very high in salt. Ever wonder why dogs and cats go into kidney failure around 8-10 years old? Dogs with congestive heart failure and Cushings disease, I blame on commercial feed. But I digress......
If you ever read my words as I drone on about chickens, you will know I say that I feed a lot of chick starter to my grown birds. Higher protein. But I also feed as much BOSS as I can and anything else that has high protein. Last winter I even bought a few bags of that floating Koi food to mix in with the layer and starter mash. It was high protein and cheaper than BOSS.
And now I grow meal worms.
If you have enough extra eggs then hard boil them and feed them back, shell and all (no use making too much work for yourself). The protein from the yolk is what those birds are really after.
If they are actually eating an egg that is not already cracked or broken then you have a problem.
If they are seeing a crack in an egg and going after it then it is natural. They know they must remove a "bad" egg or it will attract
predators.
I hope I have helped you and this will solve any problems.
Two thoughts:
Remind me what BOSS is?
And, sometimes, a hen will sit on a nest for a while and just not lay anything. I have watched some of my newer layers sit for quite a while and check as soon as they leave the nest and there is no egg.
Unfortunatly I have witnessed the egg eating and the attempt the next day....no eggs today but who knows if one was laid for sure?
