trouble trouble trouble... please help!!!

Have been chasing that ?? too.Thought I knew but now have new suspects because the same thing happened five wonderful eggs with the group I thought was bad So back to the detective work Hope more chime in ...

 

I would leave the egg in there with her for awhile. See what happens after 24 hours then take it out. Also keep her in there and see what is happening with the eggs from the other three. If she is isolated and the other eggs are intact she may be eating them. If someone else is eating them you'll find out. I think three days would give you a shot at figuring it out for sure.

 

No personal experience, but I do computer troubleshooting so I'm pretty good at eliminating variables. I would say that you keep an eye on her, and if she doesn't eat any eggs when she is housed alone, it must be someone else.

I have a friend whose chickens were eating his eggs. I got eggs from them for a long time, and toward the end (when he got rid of the chickens), the shells had gotten VERY thin. It occurs to me that perhaps they weren't getting enough calcium and trying to get it from the shells. Talk about a WAG (wild a** guess), but it might be the case in THAT case.

Is the egg eater leaving any evidence of her crime? Parts of egg, runny egg on bedding, that sort of thing so you know there was an egg there to start with? If so, you should be able to tell if that hen is not the culprit because there will be evidence in the main coop. Is it only one hen eating the eggs or do you know?

 

Here's an idea, if your method of separating them from the others doesn't help you find the culprit that probably means they don't eat their own eggs, put another chickens egg in with the hen you think is eating eggs, they might not eat their very own and could be trying to get rid of the competition, who knows it might help you find out who the egg eater is... Just a thought.

 

I'm gonna say it's probably not the top hen. If it's a nutrition issue it's likely the runt. The bottom of the pecking order might not get enough of something so they eat eggs. Another possibility is that the dominant hen pushes the eggs out of the nest and they break and get eaten by any hen around. Try collect the eggs more frequently and see if you get more eggs.