Problem #1: My buff orpingtons are 6 months old, and have been laying for almost 4 weeks. I have 2 roosters and 10 hens, and I think 7 of the hens are laying. One(some?) of them have been eating eggs ever since they started laying. I can usually get 4-5 intact eggs, and 2-3 eaten eggs (eggshells only) per day. They are eating Purina Layena pellets and free-range all day and get shut up at night. I have added oats and oyster shell to their feed and it has made no difference.

Problem #2: The silkies, housed in the adjacent pen, have never been egg-eaters, until this week. They are grown and have been laying for months. 3 of them hatched babies a few weeks ago. For the past few days, they have been eating their eggs too. They've gone from 5 eggs a day to maybe 1 or 2 intact eggs. Did the buff orpingtons tell them to start doing this? I know that sounds stupid, but I just don't know what else to think!!! I did take their babies away; I wonder if the silkie hens just said "to heck with this" and didn't want to go to the effort of setting again and just decided to eat them (since I took their babies away).

I have fayoumis in another pen across the yard, who are laying, and are not eating any eggs, so I don't necessarily think it's something nutritionally lacking in the feed. I don't think the egg-eaters are bored, because I let them out all day long to free-range (from about 9am til dark). I thought about separating them to try to figure out who was the culprit, but I honestly don't have enough empty cages to do that.

Please give me some advice, I am at my wits end and am very frustrated! Egg-eating chickens are no good to me and I hate to have put this much energy and time and FEED into them for them to be useless.

-- Tracey in Alabama (trjlanier@cs.com), November 14, 2001

Answers

I had trouble when I didn't have enough straw in the boxes. Chicken stand up just as the egg is about to pop out. If there isn't anything to absorb the shock of the drop, the eggs may crack. The cracked egg, at that point, is fair game to eat.

For those that just decide they want egg for breakfast or lunch, I have hear of people leaving fake eggs in the nest to get them to stop, or covering them with hot peppers.

-- Wendy A (phillips-anteswe@pendleton.usmc.mil), November 14, 2001.

Put some golf balls in each nest. It will be nasty for egg eating chickens and deter snakes.

I've heard of blowing the egg insides out of a shell and fill with cayenne pepper, but haven't tried it.

Pick up eggs more frequently.

Let us know the results. It's important not only to ask for and get advice but also to report results.

-- Ann Markson (tngreenacres@hotmail.com), November 14, 2001.

Egg eating is a difficult, if not impossible, habit to break. Most folks put those birds in the soup pot before they teach the rest of the flock to do the same.

-- ~Rogo (rogo2020@yahoo.com), November 14, 2001.

You need to kill the offending chickens. Simply hold onto the body with one hand and, with the other hand grasp the bird's head firmly and give a quick, hard twist. You'll hear the neck snap. Then go get more chickens to replace the ones you lost. Repeat until all your chickens are behaving in the proper manner.

-- Harold A. Gridfaniker IV (grid@yahoo.com), November 15, 2001.

tracy..I finally caught my egg eaters by putting the last unbroken egg of the day on the floor and watching to see who went for it..turns out it was my immature roosters that ran for the egg and tried to break it..after I took them out I never lost another egg!!! I have had this problem several times and caught some culprits by finding them with egg on their beaks or wet neck feathers...

-- Bee White (bee@hereintown.net), February 10, 2002.