the most messed up thing I have ever seen

[yellowappy]

Our chickens are free range & they are happy hens! When we clean out the fridge or give them treats we usually do it close to the house... Well tonight when I went back outside a few minutes after giving them the goodies... one of the hens laid an egg standing up, in the yard with no cackling like they usually do & before I could process the thought of wow there's one more egg today, the other hens & the 2 roosters were all over the egg & had it gobbled up! Has anyone else seen this? I thought it was kind of creepy....

 

[DianeS]

LOL! Yep, chickens like to eat eggs. If they can tell that there is something edible inside that shell they see everyday, they'll eat it. Especially since you said she laid it while standing up, it probably cracked when it hit the ground, and some white seeped out. That's all they need, they'll eat all the white they see, and in their excitement they'll peck the egg and step on the egg and end up cracking it so much they'll eat the rest of it too. If the egg was laid in the nestbox, and not cracked, they are unlikely to eat it. (If they do, you have a big problem on your hands.)

Want to see something even more messed up? Put a whole chicken carcass out and watch them eat that. Chickens are not just omnivores, they are also cannibals and eat anything they find, including other chickens, just like little velociraptors straight out of Jurassic Park. Eek!

 

[Caitlin2013]

Chickens love eating eggs!

I have to check my coop constantly for eggs. If I leave an egg in the box for to long my hens will be all over it. My hens tend to eat more eggs than I do.