I have two hens and one rooster all are housed together in a huge 13ft x 16ft pen they have perches to roost on and two houses. I feed them a mixture of Layeena, Chicken Scrath and a sweet goat feed mixture I also have a flock Block in the pen with them. for some reason My one hen is eating her eggs....well all the eggs. She was sitting on a clutch of 7 fetil eggs for about two weeks and then I noticed that she was not returning to the nest so I checked on the eggs and they were all gone! I have seen this hen eat eggs before...Is there something I am doing wrong? My paen is made so that nothing can get into them except snakes but I couldnt imaging a snake eating 7 eggs in one sitting. is there anything else I can do to get her to stop this behavior?
There is really no way to tell if one will be an egg eater and nobody realy knows for sure why, the whole lack of calcium argument is weak at best, and using golfballs to deter them is marginal. I have never seen or heard of any real proof that their egg eater ever quit, some of course claim to have cured them but IMO the jury is still out as I have had a few egg eaters. I tried all the gimmicks and they did cut down some but they always continued to eat eggs every now and then. Of course the best way to get them to quit is to show them the stew pot as once they start they teach the other hens to do the same, nip egg eaters in the bud fast.
