Wild birds pecking my eggs?

[RPGreg2600]

For a week or so now I have been finding about 1 egg a day with a hole pecked in it but not eaten. It's been confusing me because when I had a problem with the chickens eating eggs when they first started laying, they were eating the whole things, not just pecking a hole in them. Yesterday I found a very small egg, about maybe an inch diameter. I thought it was a freak small egg, so I decided to fry it up next to a normal size egg and take a picture. Well, when I cracked it open, there was a little embryo inside.(gross!!) Obviously, it was not a chicken egg, because there are no roosters around. I think it may be one of those birds that lays its eggs in another bird's nest and breaks it's eggs. I have seen a smaller brown bird or two fly out of the coop a couple times. Anyone had this problem?

 

[SourRoses]

Halfway through thats what I was going to say too! But is the egg the same color as your regular chicken eggs.. maybe if it was so small, you might not have seen it in the nest and someone could have been sitting on it? I've heard that some chickens just peck eggs, if they are doing it for curiosity, it depends on the personality of the offender, But it does sound like those birds... I thought they rolled the eggs out of the nest too.... were any in different spots, like they might have tried?

ETA: An Idea for a deterrent if you do find out its one of those birds... put up some fake birds, like crows perhaps, up high near areas the bird might fly into the coop, or on top of the coop, ect.

 

[farmer boy]

my chickens like to peck the eggs just to make a crack and a hole in it then they just leave the egg there but that was only with my duck eggs since the eggs were on the ground and not in the nests

 

[RPGreg2600]

Halfway through thats what I was going to say too! But is the egg the same color as your regular chicken eggs.. maybe if it was so small, you might not have seen it in the nest and someone could have been sitting on it? I've heard that some chickens just peck eggs, if they are doing it for curiosity, it depends on the personality of the offender, But it does sound like those birds... I thought they rolled the eggs out of the nest too.... were any in different spots, like they might have tried?

ETA: An Idea for a deterrent if you do find out its one of those birds... put up some fake birds, like crows perhaps, up high near areas the bird might fly into the coop, or on top of the coop, ect.

No, I definitely got it the day it was laid. It was similar colored to one of my chicken's eggs, but was speckled. Besides. Sitting on an unfertilized egg wi ll not make an embryo grow! I have no roosters, all 6 of my chickens lay.

 

[SourRoses]

I'm curious as to how it developed then? If the little bird came and laid it in the nest, it would not have had time to develop. Are these birds able to carry their eggs with their feet or something??? But I thought those birds did not ever sit on their eggs, thats why they stick them in others nests....Confusing!

 

[howfunkyisurchicken]

I'm not sure about the little bird egg. Could it have been covered in the shavings and sat upon by the bird? Usually their eggs are quite big when you consider the size of the bird that laid them, so I wouldn't think they could carry it to a new nesting spot. This will sound like a dumb question, but I have to ask....
Are you sure it was an embryo and not, say, something like a meat spot or part of an oviduct?
Honestly, when I read your description of hole pecked in the eggs my first thought was mice. When I had a mouse infestation, they would bite little holes in some eggs and leave them and chew large holes in other eggs and gobble up the contents leaving empty shells in random places in my coop!