eating her own eggs

C

clucking chicks

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Pleeeeease help (again!)
Elsie is laying lovely hard shelled eggs again now... horray! but the next problem is they are sooooo tasty, she is eating them herself (by about 6.30 in the morning.) What can we do to stop her?
Honestly, some chickens are so naughty!! Chicken kievs if she's not careful!
 
Hi CC. We had one that used to lay the egg, turn round and eat it immediately. We could see no means of breaking the habbit, so Elisa went before she started eating all the others as well.
 
Egg Eating can be a tough habit to break ( No Pun intended). There are several methods that can stop a hen eating her own eggs, but none are guaranteed 100% successful.
A Darkened Nestbox, with a curtain of sacking across the front may help. Hens only eat the egg they can see. At the same time provide plenty of loose Nesting material so the egg can sink into it out of sight of the Hen.
A 'roll-away' nest box, rather in the style of the old trap nests can work. These are boxes with sloping floors , so the freshly laid egg will roll to the back of the box, then drop through a gap at the back to a deeply littered floor beneath, out of reach of the hungry Hen.
Plenty of Dummy eggs, either Crock or Rubber ones can put a Hen off pecking at her eggs. Unsuccessful attempts at opening these artificial eggs can put less persistent birds off Egg eating, Discouraged by the lack off an eggy reward!
There are Plastic clip on Spectacle 'bits', that are commonly used by Gamekeepers/Game Farmers For Pheasant hens, to stop egg eating in Crowded laying pens. These act like Blinkers,and restrict the hen's forward vision so she can't see the egg to peck at it, yet she can still find food and water without a problem. If You are going to use 'specs', be careful to remove them from the hen's beak at the end of laying, as they can cause beaks to grow abnormally if left in for too long.
Personally I have never found the blown egg filled with mustard/Tobasco/Chili sauce to be effective, my hens seem to LOVE the taste of Hot n'Spicy things!
Any of these methods, either employed singly or combined may put a stop to your hen's bad habit. .or not! At the end of the day, if she remains a hardened offender, Culling maybe your only option.
 
Lordcluck said:
Personally I have never found the blown egg filled with mustard/Tobasco/Chili sauce to be effective, my hens seem to LOVE the taste of Hot n'Spicy things!
Click to expand...

There was a small article in an old edition of Practical Poultry which suggested filling an egg with bitter aloes (the sort you paint on your nails to stop you biting them). It didn't say whether it worked though!
 
kegs said:
Lordcluck said:
Personally I have never found the blown egg filled with mustard/Tobasco/Chili sauce to be effective, my hens seem to LOVE the taste of Hot n'Spicy things!
Click to expand...

There was a small article in an old edition of Practical Poultry which suggested filling an egg with bitter aloes (the sort you paint on your nails to stop you biting them). It didn't say whether it worked though!
Click to expand...

A new slant on an old trick kegs! Definitely worth a try!! I've also heard that Eucalyptus oil maybe effective?. . . .
 
Thank you so much for your ideas. Will try as many as I can. Unfortunately I now have a very upset little girl as we told her that because elsie is eating her eggs, we would probably send her to a local farm where the other chickens can teach her how to be a propper chicken and look after her eggs! (We did not mention kievs!)

If we did need to cull, how can we find a local person who would do it humainly? Sadly, I can't keep her if she is destroying her eggs. (Hope you don't all think I am mean....)
 
No of course you're not mean, just realistic, well done. It's a good idea anyway to have a plan of action for if and when you need to cull a sick or delinquent hen, so working this out is worth doing anyway. Either get someone to do it for you or teach you how to do it yourself in an emergency. Or, of course, if it's only one hen every now and again and you don't want to do it yourself, you can take her to the vet to be PTS.

The trouble with egg eaters is that others may learn from them how delicious a raw egg will taste, and then you have a big problem.
 
Not too sure about the 'pecking eggs to check the shells are hard enough' theory stated there DBE. Sounds like pure speculation. Normally one gets broken and they try it, recognise another and peck at that. If they naturally pecked their eggs they would set up fractures in the shells which would allow disease in. The chicks wouldn't hatch and Darwins theory comes into play -chickens that peck their eggs become extinct.

We use pot eggs to stop egg eating but in our case she laid it and turned round and ate it immediately. Hers were brown, the pot ones are white. Worth a try though CC.
 
hi you wont want to hear this but you should despatch the bird otherwise she may start eating your other hens eggs as well then you have real problems as monkey do what monkey see and the others could get into the same bad habbit.all the best uncle fox
 
It's a very difficult problem to solve. I did ask earlier where she is laying - an answer might help to find a solution.
I too think that the theory of birds checking the shell prior to incubation is totally far fetched. I often wonder who writes this stuff. I've found over the years the commonest cause is accidental breakage of a couple of eggs when they are scratching around in the nest box arranging or re-arranging the nest material. It's not a problem if there are no eggs in the nest but if there are, they are very much at risk of being broken by being knocked on the side of the nest box. Also laying outside the nest boxes in exposed situations can be the start. Providing more nest boxes might help but as we know, often they all want to lay in the same box, sometimes two or three trying to squeeze in, another cause of broken eggs. China eggs can help. Darkening the nest boxes can help as can filling the eggs with all kinds of noxious substances ! The theory about something lacking in the diet, as with feather pecking, I can see no evidence for, as well fed chickens indulge in both.
There comes a time when culling may be the only option as it's a habit that can be seized upon by the other hens as well. Luckily, some hens don't discover how to break eggs even though they are only to willing to share the spoils when one gets broken.
 
I think the original research was done by Mr. Teunis, Het Spelderholt, Beekbergen Linky which is a government sponsored research facility in the Netherlands

They used video footage of hens using the nest boxes which showed that after laying a hen normally turns and inspects the egg and will tap it with her beak.

I sometimes find a small round hole in eggs, and depending on the shape of the hole this can be a beak or a toe nail. I think there is more info on this on The Poultry Site website under shell quality.
 
Sorry Chuck... forgot to answer you question... Elsie is laying in the nesting box and devouring her egg either in there or in the coop.
 
In the nest box, I'd try all the suggstions such as darkening the nest boxes, adding crock eggs etc.

I see several eggs a week being laid and I've never seen a hen tap the egg. They do look round at them usually, roll them under themselves and proceed to sit on them for a while before leaving the nest.
 
Thank you all so much for your help with this one... I have tried putting fake eggs in the nesting box and deepening the straw to hide the egg a bit. I also dash out as soon as Elsie's laying shout has ended and so far, no more damaged eggs. I will also try to find some sacking to make the egg box darker as you have suggested. So far, so good.... (fingers crossed that this good behaviour lasts!!!!) My daughter is very relieved andalso sends her thanks! :D
 
Paper or plastic feed bags cut to size will darken the box. There's not a lot of sacking about these days.
 
I never had problem of eating eggs by hens,but had them sleeping in nest boxes when yung.I had sorted this by buying on e-bay rubber mat and hung in front of next boxes.It looks like this20111129_99_3.jpg
 
Same as we've done to all our nest boxes Tygresek. But we used rubber car mats from Wilkos at £1 each. Very poor quality though and if you collect from an internal nest box and part the curtains too much the rubber tears and the strips fall off!
 
Think I owe Darkbrowneggs an apology for doubting the article quoted about pecking eggs to test the shell quality. Dilly has laid three beautiful eggs in the last three days and each has a slot pecked into it just deep enough to rupture the yolk. But none of the contents has has been eaten. I've been checking regularly and got to the last two eggs while warm. The run has been changed so I very much doubt a predator so soon. Have a rubber Wilko's egg in there as well which Dilly was sitting on this morning. She has almost stopped eating layers and now eats Bottom's rearers pellets -all of them when she gets inside the house.

I conclude, rightly or wrongly, that she is getting broody and is testing the eggs for suitability to sit on. The shells are thin because she is eating predominately rearer pellets and she peck tests each egg. To confirm this I will put layers pellets in Bottom's food bowl so in a few days Dilly's eggs should be firmer. Then she should go broody on them, we'll see?
 
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