Suspect I have a chicken eating eggs

[rachelbinnc]

I have new layers and I'm wondering: How do you know if the chickens are eating the eggs or if someone is laying a shell-less egg?

I had an incident yesterday where I saw yolk smeared all over the nest, but I couldn't find any shell fragments. Do you think they are breaking and eating the shells? Or do you think someone made an egg with no shell? If someone broke the egg, I want to do something fast to keep it from happening again. But if it was just a flukey egg, I won't have to do anything, right?

 

[chicken boy sam]

I don't think they broke the egg. When mine started laying, they had shells like that, too. Try putting some oyster shell into their food or in a separate container to strengthen the egg shell. You can buy it at your local feed store.

 

[keeko]

Does anyone know if curtains on the nest boxes will help or hinder the situation? Someone already asked about this, but there didn't seem to be an answer. I know nest boxes need to be cozy, and the curtains will help make it dark and private, but will it deter new young hens from figuring out to go in there and lay? I'm having some egg eating issues, but my hens are very young (some haven't laid yet!), so I want to stop the eating on one hand, and encourage laying on the other....

I've done a lot of reading up on this subject and it sounds like there are true egg eaters (who love the taste of eggs and break them intentionally) and young hens who lay shell-less or soft eggs, and either step on them or break them, and it looks like they've been eaten. Some may even eat parts of the soft egg, and it sounds like that can spawn egg eating behavior!

I tried the mustard egg thing...it worked, but only the first time. They all FLEW towards the egg when I put it down, and one of my main egg eating suspects broke it open and gulped up the mustard. She hated it, shook her head, and started cleaning her beak. The others picked up it quickly. They clearly hated the mustard. So I cleaned up what was left and took it away.

When I put the "suspects" in their tractor for isolation from the main flock, I left a very mustardy egg in there all day. By the end of the day they had eaten around the mustard. They were determined. I wouldn't suggest this as a method. Instead, put the egg in, let them see it is awful, and then take whatever is left away.

Any other info on the subject is always helpful! Keep the tips coming!!