Tiny hole poked in egg

[lynnehd]

Hey, I have 4 chickens, two of them are 20+ weeks old.
The Australorp started laying eggs fairly consistently, small but very sturdy shelled, about 2 weeks ago.
The first one was in the run, intact, but since then they have all been in the same nestbox.

The other same aged hen, a Welsummer, shows the signs, but we don't think has laid yet.

Yesterday there was an egg in the run with a tiny hole poked in it. Nothing had been eaten, the yolk was intact.
(we wondered if it was the Welsummer starting to lay, since it was out of the nest box, but can't be sure).

Today there was an egg in the favorite nest box of the Australorp, with a tiny hole in it, just a few mm's (shell still in place, just depressed down a bit). The hole was on the ground side.





Any ideas? Thank you.

 

[IceAngel]

Well it seems someone is pecking your eggs. My chickens are very curious and they will peck at anything strange in the yard. If it turns out not to be food, they leave it alone and seem to learn from it and won't peck it again. Luckily whoever is doing the egg pecking hasn't discovered what's inside. Once they find the yummy yolk, you will have an egg eater on your hands. I don't know if you can break them of this behaviour once it gets started.

 

[lynnehd]

Well it seems someone is pecking your eggs. My chickens are very curious and they will peck at anything strange in the yard. If it turns out not to be food, they leave it alone and seem to learn from it and won't peck it again. Luckily whoever is doing the egg pecking hasn't discovered what's inside. Once they find the yummy yolk, you will have an egg eater on your hands. I don't know if you can break them of this behaviour once it gets started.

Thanks. No one has eaten anything (it was only yesterday and today), so that is why I have posted, to see if this can be normal in young hens, or a defect, etc.
Oddly the second egg's hole was facing the ground, as I mentioned. That means it had to be turned over after the presumed peck.

 

[junebuggena]

Do you have any dummy eggs in the nest boxes? Some of my girls like to play around and the eggs in the nes before they settle down to lay. The hole was probably made by a curious beak. Promptly collecting the freshly laid eggs and leaving the dummy eggs will help prevent the curious pecking from turning into egg eating. The idea is that after pecking at the dummy eggs often enough, will lead them to think that all hard, round things in the nest are not things to eat and not worth testing.

 

[lynnehd]

Yes, I have a fake egg in each nest. I also have the nest pads and aspen bedding, which they seem to like. I added more for extra padding today. We try to check for eggs frequently, but will bump this up.

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[lynnehd]

Well, things have straightened out.

Apparently no one was pecking or eating eggs, because it has resolved.
I added some more bedding for padding, and a couple of golf balls to the fake eggs, which has seemed to help!
Both the Australorp and Welsummer have figured out how to lay in the nest boxes; they each have their favorite.

All eggs since this post have been intact, and in the past week have been deposited in the nest boxes w/o incident.
I would attribute the initial egg damage just to the fact that the hens were inexperienced, and perhaps needed more padding in the nest boxes.

So far, so good.