4m x 3m Omlet pen, cube, new auto door still boxed and coop light

[Chooks Aloud]

Well the 2 new chooks from Oxford are rehomed and settled in nicely with my 3. They are absolutely gorgeous.

 

My question is, now that I have 5 chooks they all seem to want to lay at the same time. I have put a washing up bowl filled with nest material underneath the eglu (hoping that they will use that if the nest is occupied).

When I am home I can visit the run regularly, but on the days that I work I cannot. Yesterday when I got home from work I found the remains of an egg in the nest. It was obviously trodden on because I could follow the egg white stains down the ladder, but there was no egg/shell left - obviously been eaten.

 

How do you get around this situation.

 

Karen

[Ain't Nobody Here]

Someone will come along with proper advice (Egluntine ... where are you?!) but I think you have to take steps to prevent them getting a taste for eating their own eggs. Putting mustard or chilli powder into an egg and leaving it in the nestbox is one method I think I remember reading.

[Eyren]

I know some people have set up "roll-away" nest-boxes to cope with egg eating/breaking - maybe you could try something similar? (I assume your eglu is in a large run since you have space underneath.) You might then have to block off the eglu nest box by putting an upturned plant-pot in it...

 

These people sell the inserts quite cheaply, if you know someone who could build a wooden surround:

 

http://www.chicken-house.co.uk/nest_boxes.htm

[Chooks Aloud]

I don't think I've got a problem with egg eating as such, but breaking due to too many being in the nest and once they are broken they are eaten, naturally.

 

Karen

[Snowy]

If there was no evidence of a shell, maybe the chook laid a softie? I find that they tend to lay these on the bars rather than in the nest (it's as if they know). Also, if you can get some fake eggs to put in the nests, they will lay where there are other eggs.

 

Sorry, just reread and you said it was in the nest. But maybe it was a softie anyway.

[Egluntyne]

Sounds like a "one off"....fingers crossed.

 

I would see how you go before you have to do anything drastic.

 

Filling egg shells with chilli or mustard is supposed to do the trick, but is a lot of faffing about.

 

Putting a couple of ceramic eggs in the nest is also supposed to work, as pecking at them achieves nothing but an unpleasant sensation.

 

Removing the eggs at the earliest opportunity helps enormously, but we can't stand over the Eglu all day, much as we'd like to.