The mystery of the Missing Ceramic Eggs

[cmom]

I use golf balls in the nests.

 

[wild chick]

I have golf balls and ceramic, one in each nest for 3 years now. About a month ago things just seemed weird to me, eggs on the floor, eggs to one side not in the middle, then golf ball disappeared. Then broken eggs in the nest, and the replacement golf ball gone. I just knew it wasn't the hens. I set up the game camera and the culprit was a rock squirrel. You guys in the west half of the country will know what I'm talking about. Live trap and dispatch to two of them and quiet ever since. I'm pretty sure I'll find the two golf balls under the wood pile. You can see the "rat" leaving the coop in the bottom photo. I think it was trying to take the real eggs for food storage and they kept breaking, so when he/she found one that didn't break, away it went thinking it had a prize. If hens had broken those eggs they would have eaten them up. To add info: My chickens free range and this rat never came until late afternoon (rock squirrels are day creatures like tree squirrels) when there wasn't anyone in the coop laying or coming or going. Not too dumb, learned to avoid the noise those hens would have made if it was caught in there!

 

[Dbendell]

A long time ago I placed three ceramic eggs (bought at TS) in the laying boxes of one of my chicken houses where I almost always found eggs on the floor. The ceramic eggs helped whichever hens were laying outside the boxes, and I never found eggs on the floor again. Out of lazyness, I just left the fake eggs in the nests, where they stayed for three years. A few weeks ago, one of the fake eggs was gone. I looked for it in the boxes, on the floor, everywhere. Gone. The chicken house is surrounded by a fence made of chicken wire and it is covered with the same metallic netting. The chicken house is closed at night with two latches and a padlock (I leave the key in the padlock because I know that raccoons know how to open latches, but I doubt they'd be able to turn the key to open the lock). We gather the eggs every night before closing the chicken house door though there is a bit of a gap between the door and the house, not wide enough for a possum or raccoon to go through. Well, last night my wife noticed that another fake egg was missing. No great loss, I have more and, besides, now my hens know better than laying on the dirt. But what could have stolen fake eggs? Why? Did it happen during the day when there are real eggs to be had? Did it happen at night? Of course fake eggs that have been in laying boxes for years must smell like real eggs to a rat, or squirrel, or snake. But I can see the chicken house from my living room window, and we often watch the chickens' antics--they never fail to amuse us, especially "chicken football," when one of the hens grabs a lizard, or a large bug she can't gulp down right away and runs with it chased by the others that want to steal her juicy morsel. Anyhow, we've never seen any animal steal a real egg in four years, since that first chicken house was built. Quite a mystery, huh? There is only one fake egg left, and I expect that one to be stolen soon. Should I place a surveillance camera in the chicken house connected to a recorder in my house? Naw! Too complicated and spendy. The chickens know who or what the culprit is, I am sure--but they won't talk! Oh, by the way, it would have been impossible for us to have picked the fake eggs mistaking them for real ones. The fake ones are much lighter than real eggs and, besides, I painted smiley faces on them because it would have been embarrassing to place fake eggs in a carton to be sold at the farmers' market.

 

[Dbendell]

The same thing just happened to me. I have 3 hens and 1 ceramic egg. One day it was missing. I looked in the coop and the run, nada. Since I only have 3 hens, neither the coop nor the run is large. The missing egg was bugging me so I went out to look again and saw that they had pushed it out of the layer box to the floor of the coop and then down the ramp into the run. I don't know where they had it stashed the first time I looked.

 

[Bonniebooboo]

I have golf balls and ceramic, one in each nest for 3 years now. About a month ago things just seemed weird to me, eggs on the floor, eggs to one side not in the middle, then golf ball disappeared. Then broken eggs in the nest, and the replacement golf ball gone. I just knew it wasn't the hens. I set up the game camera and the culprit was a rock squirrel. You guys in the west half of the country will know what I'm talking about. Live trap and dispatch to two of them and quiet ever since. I'm pretty sure I'll find the two golf balls under the wood pile. You can see the "rat" leaving the coop in the bottom photo. I think it was trying to take the real eggs for food storage and they kept breaking, so when he/she found one that didn't break, away it went thinking it had a prize. If hens had broken those eggs they would have eaten them up. To add info: My chickens free range and this rat never came until late afternoon (rock squirrels are day creatures like tree squirrels) when there wasn't anyone in the coop laying or coming or going. Not too dumb, learned to avoid the noise those hens would have made if it was caught in there!
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Awesome! Good catch!

 

[alanpeg2u]

Somewhere ...there's a poor, stupid snake looking in his medicine chest for the Fleets suppositories!

 

[Rosie0550]

I’m glad to see some “pro-snake” people.... I understand not wanting them stealing eggs or harming the chickens, but geez-Louise, I would rather have the Rat Snake than the rat around my henhouse/property. (I understand killing venomous snakes - but the others are likely more beneficial than harmful!) If anything has to die I hope at least it’s quick. With that being said, the mental image of a snake looking for an enema is funny...

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

I loved my rat snake and didn't begrudge him an occasional egg. After he died the rats chewed the wires in my car and it cost $500 to fix.

 

[aart]

culprit was a rock squirrel.

Hates squirrels....but I love the fox painting on your coop @wild chick !

 

[Ginagallina]

Snake. 2 different ones. My sister had a missing egg like that one time. About 3 years later her help was working in the yard and cleaning out flower beds. She had told him previously that if he runs across any hidden eggs let her know because someone was trying to be sneaky and create herself a clutch.
Well one particular day he came running with a very dirty egg to show her. He said he found it in a crack in the fence. Turns out it was the fake egg that had been missing. When a snake swallows an egg they always go through a hole or crack smaller than the egg so that it will bust and then they can digest it. Apparently it got stuck in the fence and died. She wondered why no sign of of the snake and I reminded her that chickens will eat anything. Alive or dead snakes.