Why do hens push eggs out of nests?

[WesleyBeal]

Could be rats.

Yeah, that was my first guess. But since there have been eggs moved during the daytime, I'm leaning towards the ground squirrels. Regardless, I'm going to be setting some traps and hopefully find out soon which.

 

[aart]

I start searching, and back behind some 5-gallon buckets I store supplements in....




The chickens can't fit back there. There was a feed bag on top wedged between the buckets and the wall that I had to move first to see them.

Hope you catch the little..... stinker!

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Yeah, that was my first guess. But since there have been eggs moved during the daytime, I'm leaning towards the ground squirrels. Regardless, I'm going to be setting some traps and hopefully find out soon which.

Rats around here a bold and wickedly smart. We can never catch them with traps, we always resort to poison. We do catch sparrows and starling with rat traps.

Do you have a trail cam? They can be handy in identifying who's coming around and are reasonably priced. When something goes amiss around here we put out our cameras. One year I was feeding 3 very fat raccoons cat food, and last year a skunk was eating turkey eggs.