Squirrels are stealing my pullet eggs. They are Exchequer Leghorns who are supposed to lay a smallish egg, so I fear they may never get too big for the squirrels to take. Rats I can live with because they only come out at night, so as long as I collect from the yard before dusk, no problems. But how do I deal with squirrels? I live in the city, so I can't shoot them. I would prefer not even to trap them as we have so many squirrels in this neighborhood, the problem would surely return in short order. What do I do about this? It's not like I can stand around in my yard all day catching eggs as they pop out!
I'm interested to see what people have to say in regard to squirrels, too...so I'm bumping this up for you. We have such a large number of squirrels in our area that it teeters on obscene! Just yesterday I was in the yard trying to figure out where to plant our garden...and there were 6 (yes, six) squirrels on one of our trees alone! They're loud, too...not to mention the fact that they chase our dogs (not the other way around). We have a 4lb Yorkie and a 5 lb Yorkie and the squirrels constantly chase them. ...now I'm worried about our soon-to-be chickens too. Sigh..didn't know squirrels were egg thieves! Not good! I hope you get some replies to this.
Well, I don't think squirrels often steal adult, large-fowl eggs. Mine are getting stolen because these are pullets from a small-egg-laying breed, so these eggs are about 1/3 the size of the eggs we get from our Wyandotte and Welsummer hens. But the ones I've managed to get so far are about 3X more delicious, so I want them!!
Maybe put a chicken diaper on each of them, then when they lay the egg it will be in the diaper...along with all the poo...lol sorry that's all I could think of.
That is too funny (although I know not funny to you!!) I never heard of squirrels doing that before. My girls chase the squirrels. No squirrels enter our backyard anymore, they run along the fence or go from tree to tree but I never see them on the ground anymore. I never had chickens chase squirrels until my latest batch. I have 7 that are now 17 weeks old and they started chasing small birds and squirrels when they were about 8-10 weeks old. It is alot of fun to watch. Good luck I hope you can solve the problem.
I'm having the same problem I think... Not 100% sure but pretty sure... I don't think I ever had this problem (or maybe I didn't notice it before) so I am hoping its only happening because of the squirrels preparing for hibernation.
