They ate the first egg!!!

[Bridget399]

I was just coming back from taking my dogs swimming at a local lake and decided to check on the chickens before going into the house. One of my Red Stars was looking quite strange, her bottom was tilted toward the ground, and her wings were drooping. Then, out came an egg, right in the run. I think it broke as soon as it hit the ground, because the others came over and quickly devoured it! It looked rubbery. I only saw it for 5 seconds! It had a yolk, and was small, but impressive. I think the shell was too weak, what may be called a "fart egg"?
I just put oyster shell in their coop yesterday, and moved their nesting boxes down lower.

Will they not eat the eggs if they have a tougher shell?
Do you think that since they have had one egg that they now have an aquired taste for them?
And why do you think she didn't use the nesting box?
I'm sorry for all the questions but I'm so upset that I didn't get to keep that egg or at least get pictures of it!!!

 

[trilyn]

Oh, I'm so sorry! I feel your pain, at least you've seen an egg, I haven't seen one yet. Are your nests boxes lower than your roosts? If so, have you tried putting golf balls in the boxes to encourage them to lay in there? Just a couple things to try. Hope you see an egg soon!!

 

[redhen]

OOh boy! egg eaters! Thats one of my biggest fears...I hear its very hard to stop them from doing it once they start.

 

[rancher hicks]

Well now here's my experience with newbies. Sometimes the eggs are skin shelled and they're just as surprised as you. The hormones are changing, kinda like puberty I expect. I once found two skin eggs underneath the roost. I saw one at night while shutting up but left it till morning but it was gone. I suppose they ate what was left. It was just the skin. I also found a small one in the nest box. It looked ok til I picked it up. Yuk!
One poster said he made the nest boxes smaller and that stopped the egg eating. I've read the bigger the better, but I don't agree. I say just enough room to do their business and get out. I've recently moved in some new girls and they have laid theirs in the run or on the floor. Fortunately no one ate them. I expect they'll get the idea after a couple of days. They are Delawares and forgive me if I say they are good layers. They don't seem to miss a beat from moving stress. They've laid since the day I brought them home. After 3 hours in travel time in the back of my minivan.
I give them oyster shells, not that "gran-i-grit" stuff. Read the label if it says just "oyster shells" that's what I personally suggest. I also gave them spinach with yogurt. Spinach has calcium. Next year I'll be planting it. The spinach not the yogurt. I just can't seem to get yogurt to grow. It must have something to do with the soil.

 

[cmom]

That has happened to my birds too. Not to worry. They ate it because it hit the ground and broke open, but that doesn't necessarily make them egg eaters. If this was a first egg sometimes the shells maybe thin or soft shelled.

 

[juliecox]

I bet she was just young and was surprised. I wouldn't worry about them eating the eggs unless you find they actually break open the eggs. One time doesn't equal a habit necessarily. The other posters had some good suggestions though.

 

[MIKE555444]

I think I would quickly put out some golf balls to let them kow that all eggs are not eatable

 

[Bridget399]

Thanks! I think she WAS just as suprised as I was, too! I put golfballs in the nesting boxes (one in each) and noticed that some of the oystershell (I put out last nite) was gone.
I'm hoping they ate it because it burst as soon as it hit the ground, (they didn't even get the chance to peck at it).
Everyone on here is such a huge help! I would have given up long ago with out BYC!

Thanks again!!

 

[Hangin Wit My Peeps]

Mine did the same thing...if they eat an egg when it is cracked while they are laying it and it hits something hard and cracks, is shell less, or if they accidentally step on it and eat it... Don't worry, they won't continue to eat the hard shelled eggs if they are not cracked first. They don't realize HOW it was cracked or that the egg was the good tasting treat. Now, if they peck at a hard shelled egg and purposely crack it then that could mean trouble. That is when they will continue..once they KNOW how to crack it and know where the great tasting contents come from, that is bad. They will also teach others how to crack them!

 

[TexGardenGirl]

For a couple days before I got a real egg (about 3 wks ago), and then a couple days after, I'd find a sort of skin under the roost in the morning, looked like a shell-less egg but torn open & no yellow. I don't know if they were yolkless too or if they had eaten the insides. They were leathery and rubbery. And then it stopped, except one day about a week later I was out filling their water & stuff, and two hens ran squawking across the yard. One had a little sac in her mouth, not much bigger than a yolk, and the other was trying to steal it. By the time I caught up to them she had dropped it once, then the other one picked it up and dropped it again and that time it burst open on the ground. They started lapping it up right away (and of course by now everyone else is checking it out too). I tried to shoo them off right away, and grabbed some of their water pans to at least dilute it (of course it was on the dirt, soaking in and I couldn't really wipe it up or anything). Anyhow I got enough that they lost interest and ran away.
So I was terrified that they had now all acquired the taste, and so I would go check every hour or so, or any time I heard any cackling at all, even if it didn't sound like the egg song, and I have not seen any evidence of any further eating. At no time did I find any actual hard shell pieces, just membranes, so I tend to agree that as long as they don't figure out that there is yumminess inside the hard shell, they don't try to peck the eggs. I hope. So far so good!