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Chicken/egg problem

O

old

Well-known Member
Location
Camdenton Missouri
I keep finding eggs that have been broken open and eaten so I think I have a chicken that has learned to like the taste of eggs. So how do you stop this problem. Most days I loose 2 or 3 eggs. The other problem is I have no idea which one is doing it since I have around 30 or so of them.
Any ideas on how to #1 figure out which one is doing it. Or #2 how to stop the problem short of getting rid of all my chickens and starting over again.
I do try to check for eggs about every hour or so but I can not always do that.
Thanks
 
We had a rooster that did that, now we do not have a rooster. If the hens are laying in one spot keep an eye on it and you may be able to see which hen is responsible. Once a hen starts I think there is no recourse other than capital punishment.
Zach
 
Partition off the coop, and move one or two chickens to the other side of the partition each day until the egg-eating stops.

Once the culprit is identified, a marinate in buttermilk, a dredge in bread crumbs, and a bath in hot vegetable shortening will take care of the problem.
 
I think you need to start feeding oyster shells.Chickens that need calcium tend to start eating there eggs.It could be a skunk but I think you would know that as you are preeety handy with the rodents.

feeding grit and shells will harden the egg and they can't break as easy and they will stop trying,usually.
Herd someone mention put plastic eggs in a nest and they will aklways go there to lay,culprit might not want to jump in the nest to eat them.
Chicken barn I worked in all the eggs that hit the floor were eaten, in the nest no problem.
 
You might want to drop a plastic egg on the floor to see witch hen is the most interested in it.Remove that hen or 2 and see what happens.make good soup if nothing else.
 
They have a feeder full of oyster shell 24/7 so I know that is not the problem. I also keep a few plastic eggs out there to help them nest better and those stay just fine in or out of the nest boxes
 
Yes, make sure they have oyster shells-they'll have harder shell eggs. I have been around chickens on the farm all my life, but have never had any break and eat their own eggs. Are you sure there are no animals that get to them?
Brian(MN)
 
Yep has th be the chickens them self's that are doing it because there is no way any other animal is in with them. I to have been around chickens most of my life as has my mom and she has seen it happen before. I have tried to find out which bird it is but it is hard to figure out when you have as many as I have and no way to close them off with out throwing them out of the pen and that would in turn be like throwing them to the lions
 
Split,em into two groups and see which group it's happening in. Then split the group where it's happening,etc,til you figure which one's doing it.
 
We feed our eggshells back to the chickens. Also, if I drop an egg while collecting them, there's a HUGE henfight over it, and they gobble everything down.

I have not had a problem with them cannibalizing freshly laid eggs.

I've heard you can put a ceramic egg in a nest and the bird that's pecking the eggs will quit once it gets a headache or two..."8^)
 
A hint of yellow yoke on the beak,facial & neck feathers of the offending bird.
Had a semi valuable hen doing that so chicken soup wasn't an option.Took her over to the bench grinder in the shop and blunted back her upper and lower beaks to a flat.
Surprisingly enough the beaks did grow back but she learned the 2nd time they were shortened.
I do leave oyster shell out 24/7 year around. The story that prepared feed has enough calcium doesn't wash around here.
 
I thought a hen would eat the shell.If the shell is left would a weasel take the egg but not the shells or the hens???????
 
mine do that from time to time ive narrowed it down to the chickens are cold the colder it is outside the more they do it and yes they have a heat lamp on them i think its comfy in there bedding area but must be not to them as you all know eggs are good protien and protien helps you keep warm ive used the grit and every other trick posted on here nothing works but when it gets back to above freezing no more broke or eaten eggs i was a little slow on putting the light on them this year and never got an egg to bring home till i put the light in
 
I to have heat lamps, good bedding both hay and saw dust. I keep feed out there 24/7 with both scratch and egg pellets. I do go out as much as I can to get the eggs. Just got 3 from the chicken house and one from the tack house. The 3 I got from the chicken house where all different colors. One brown one white and one green
 
I feed egg shells back to to my birds also but I bake them before I do so the smell is not the same and no fresh egg is in or on them. I do throw to parts of the egg I find that the bird has eaten out of the house but try to step on it and brake it up before the birds get to it. I have also found if the chicken ever see a mouse and can catch it the mouse does not last very long and they fight over who gets fresh meat. LOL
 
I glanced though but didn't see the solution we used with our farm chicken when one got to eating eggs.

Make a hole in the shell of an egg and insert something to break and stir the yolk. While holding the egg over a container insert a soda straw through the hole and blow out the liquid. It isn't easy and the yolk must be broken to do so.

Mix the contents with a lot of red pepper and get it back into the egg by whatever means you can then seal the hole.

Once the egg eating biddy gets a good proper dose of HOT HOT HOT egg she will likely be broken from eating any more of them.
 
Fer shure on the the mice!

I had a spell this Spring where the mice were drowning themselves in the sheeps heated water bucket. Guess they thought it was a heated pool and forgot they couldn't swim...

I'd dip 'em out and throw them in the coop and them hens was on those critters like white on rice.
 
You could well be right, but I've never noticed that with my flock. No heat in the coop and a heated dog dish for their water. I even leave a downwind window open a couple of inches to vent the ammonia from their waste.

Only thing I do different to get the birds through a Maine winter is feed them cracked corn for scratch feed.

I use mulch hay for bedding and I do change that a little more often as they're inside more and "it" builds up faster.
 
Hey Old,

I have 8000 laying hens and any one of them would gobble up an egg if presented with an opportunity. They don't seem to bother unbroken eggs, but a cracked one doesn't stand a chance. I have rollaway nests that allow the egg to roll onto a belt down the center of the barn, but I'm having a huge problem with them laying on the floor in barn two - about 1000 eggs a day. Of the 1000 eggs, probably 2 dozen are eaten up, the rest are left alone. It seems to me they can't break the shells unless the shell was already weak and then landed on by a chicken coming off the roost. Otherwise they leave the eggs on the floor alone. Obviously the eggs on the belt are safe as well.

Can you get some rollaway nests? If the birds lay in them, the eggs roll out of reach and the ladies can't eat em.
 
I know the ones your talking about or ones like them. Years ago when I was a kid I worked in an egg farm and all there birds when in cages that held 2 to a cage and was set up so they never could sit in an egg they would roll out where you in turn walked by and picked them up. So in my day you could say that I had handled well over a million eggs since it was common to get 10,000 per day and in the summer I stay with that family a lot so chores where chores no matter what
 
I know that does not work since my birds eat a lot of hot peppers all summer long. I throw them a lot of hot peppers off my plants when I get bad ones or ones that have gotten to big etc and they love them. Shoot it is even said that if you want your birds to produce more eggs feed them hot peppers
 
Put one in a cage. Change chickens every day. When no eggs are eaten.........that day"s chicken is the guilty on! See how tasty it is.
 
Keep plenty off material in the nest boxes.many hens will lay standing up. if an egg breaks all will eat it.If you find yolk on a hens beak or feathers cut the top beak back 1/4 inch.Some hens do peck eggs til they break.one sure method is to bring a chair into the henhouse.Sit quietly with a 22 and shoot the egg eater.Old hens lay weak shell eggs.A dark hest will help.The hens enter from the end of a big nest box.You pick eggs by lifting the hinged top.
 
Make sure they have grit and oyster shell at all times, also try changing their feed as well.

If thats not it then there may be one that likes to lay in a particular spot where the egg cracks on a hard spot in that nest box or whatever the spot is they lay, once an egg cracks any of them will eat it. The perp isn't a lost cause by any means, once you get the deficiency solved it or they will stop eating the eggs.

I put squares of indoor outdoor carpet in my nest boxes and that stopped the egs from cracking on the wooden bottoms, the straw I had been using would get scooted out exposing the wooden bottom, when they laid the eggs either they dropped too far and cracked or the birds themselves would put too much weight on the egg and crack it. That stopped mine from eating the eggs and they were well into the custom, lol.
 
A golf ball or a glass egg will curb their habit better than the chilies, capsicum isn't active on chickens (at least I thought it was). If they are really eating eggs, a few pecks at a glass one may teach them not to do it.

Bedding is a must though, pine needles or straw or hay. Something at least sort of soft.

Good feed all the time, sometimes I throw a handful of oyster shells in with the layer feed.
 
Rollaway nest box is the answer. They cant eat what isnt there. If you have thin shells dispite offering oyster shells free choice, you can throw some on top of the feed every time you fill up the feeder.

Gathering eggs every hour or so? For only 30 hens? My god, those and the most expensive eggs I ever heard of....
 
We have 6 chickens that just started laying the first of the year.

Yesterday, I went in the coop and found them all working over an egg. All that was left was shell but it was still wet so I know it was fresh.

Any time we find an egg on the floor, it's dented like it's been pecked, but the membrane has never been broken. I think we have a hen that's laying on the floor and the other ones are taking a whack at it just because it doesn't belong on there.

We've been getting 4 to 5 eggs a day, yesterday was 6, so I know they are all laying. I don't think they are eating very many, but we'd never know, there isn't much evidence if you don't catch them in the act.

We are feeding complete feed & plenty of water, we have a dirt box in there for them to play in and a Flock Block for them to peck at. They have a chance to get out everyday but lately they just stand in the doorway b!tching about the snow (sounds familiar huh?).

We have enough eggs for the two of us so if they want to eat one once in awhile, so beit, it's all going to end up as nourishment for us eventually.

Tim
 
Why do you say expensive?? I'm retired and for the most part I do my chore a little here and a little there. I go out and check eggs and might fill one of the 2 waterers I have or maybe bring them some hay for the next boxes etc. I need to get up and move so the short walk to the hen house is good for me any how
 
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