Unable to eat the usual sunnyside-up egg after seeing hen swallow a mouse...

[HKG]

Strange thought, but if you have mice in your coop, they're probably pooping in the chicken feed, which is probably just as gross as her eating the actual mouse.

 

[The Moonshiner]

And just think of where the eggs come out of and eggs are porous so...... HAPPY EATING

 

[Bawkbok]

That kind of makes the omelet I just ate turn in my stomach....

 

[sideyard chick]

Thank you all for your replies! Very interesting and amusing. "Slurping snakes like spaghetti" really made me laugh. I'm getting close to being able to eat a sunny-side up egg, but am currently at the scrambled level.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Circle of life, folks. Circle of life.

 

[Pigeony]

I once saw one of my hens catch and swallow a fledgeling verdin, near whole. I say near whole because she had to rip the wings off to successfully swallow it . Never quite looked at my cuddly lil lapbird the same lol.

 

[WingItRanch]

This thread inspired me to start one specifically for funny stories about how disturbing our sweet little chickens appetites are...join in! https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/this-chicken-is-a-gluttonous-dinosaur.1665744/

 

[KimbosKluckers]

This is so funny. I’ve been dealing with my husband not being able to eat our eggs. Restaurant eggs and store bought are fine but not my fresh ones. He can handle baking with it and very occasionally scrambled but never fried. Only because he had a horrible experience as a kid from a farmer’s egg Even the horror stories I tell him of commercial eggs, bleaching, sitting forever before even being sold etc…nope. I wish he’d overcome this.

 

[SamLockwood]

I was in the chicken coop last week and a ruckus began of the hens chasing another hen who had caught a mouse. She then just swallowed it while the tail hung out of her mouth for awhile. I freaked out that she might die since reading much about craw impaction, but she has been perfectly fine since.

However, now I am unable to eat a fried egg since the image of that hen swallowing the mouse keeps returning. Baking with eggs idoesn't repulse me but seeing one in all its glory, I cannot eat.

I know this is normal for chickens to eat mice. Can someone talk me out of my hopefully temporary revulsion for eating an egg by itself. Much appreciated!

Chickens put the "omni" in "omnivore."

I've seen mine eat small lizards, mice, and all kinds of plants and bugs. I thought the mouse-eating thing was a myth until I saw two of my hens play tug-of-war with a small field mouse.

You've got to remember that it all boils down to chemistry: every creature's digestive system separates what it eats into nutrients it can use and excretes the rest as waste. By the time that mouse became an egg it wasn't a mouse any more, just some proteins, amino acids, vitamins, and calcium. Plus, as you're reading this I gaurantee you your chickens are eating something at least as disgusting as what you witnessed.

Here's something to put it in perspective: all the water on Earth now is the same water that was on Earth when the oceans were formed. It's never created or destroyed, it just becomes ice or water vapor or whatever as it travels around. As old as the planet is, any given water you're drinking passed through the kidneys of some other creature at some point in the past.

Even if you're a vegan, you're eating plants that grown in DIRT. Dirt that is likely fortified with organic fertilizer (a.k.a. "poop") or compost (a.k.a "rotting garbage").

You had no problem with sunny-side up eggs before, even though you had to have known that eggs come out of the same hole the chickens poop from, so stop over-thinking it.

 

[SamLockwood]

This is so funny. I’ve been dealing with my husband not being able to eat our eggs. Restaurant eggs and store bought are fine but not my fresh ones. He can handle baking with it and very occasionally scrambled but never fried. Only because he had a horrible experience as a kid from a farmer’s egg Even the horror stories I tell him of commercial eggs, bleaching, sitting forever before even being sold etc…nope. I wish he’d overcome this.

That's a new one on me.

Maybe try acquainting him with egg candling? I usually candle mine becuase even though I'm aware certain things are "natural" I'd still rather not see them in "technicolor." Plus if I'm giving any away I like to make sure I'm not subjecting people to any possible horror-shows. Anything that's a bit suspect under the light I just put aside for composting or baiting predators.

Maybe if he sees you're checking them that way (or better yet, he does it himself) he could get over that issue.