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JellyB

crushed eggs

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3 days ago I found a squashed egg (from Daisy my newest chook) in the run, I just assumed it had been laid there and got squished by all 3 chooks running around in the run as they had been in there all day.

 

Yesterday I got home and there was another Daisy egg in the nest but all broken up. DS had seen in in the morning but left if for me to collect when I got home from work (as he knows I like to) but when I went to get the egg it was all broken up. Could either or both of my other hens be doing this on purpose? Both of them have laid an egg since I got Daisy, usually alternately, there were no eggs from either of them yesterday.

 

I didn't think chickens deliberately broke eggs but would be grateful for any advice.

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The chickens may have been a little clumsy and squished the egg accidentaly (sp?). Are the egg shells a liitle thin? You could try adding extra Oyster shell grit to their feed to toughen up the egg shells.

 

Were the contents of the egg there? Had the egg been eaten? Some chickens do develop a taste for eggs and it is difficult to break this habbit.

 

It might be an idea to remove the eggs as soon as possible after they have been laid. Tricky I know if you are out or at work.

 

Keep an eye on Daisy, if this has only started happening since her arrival she may be the culprit.

 

Hope you get this sorted.

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hi Jelly B sorry to hear about your possible egg eating, sorry to tell you it does happen and it can be very hard to prevent but I can give you a quick run down off things to try if you are sure that is what is happening.

 

we had our first 2 girls Rosie and Willow in march 2005 and first had a problem in the summer possibly because a soft egg was laid and they found out how nice they were!!

we of course came to the forum for advice and I think we tried pretty much everything.

 

I think the first thing is try not to let it become an established habit so pick up the eggs asap (I got to the point where I couldn't get on with my day until both eggs were safely collected which was a real problem when laying time moved to after lunch! ) unfortunately even hovering like a hen midwife wasn't enough as I still sadly had to go to work some days so we eventually tried

 

plan b .. poison eggs well ok not poison but anything your hens will really hate think the usual advice is mustard , filling a blown egg with mustard is one of many things I never predicted having to do!! it worked ...for 3 days then our girls decided they liked mustard ( we once tried chilli sandwiches for a dog that stole and she loved chilli ever after too) we then moved on to bitter bite and flour which worked for a bit longer but agian failed

 

other things which were suggested were a china egg because they give up when they fail to get anywhere, ours just turfed it out of the nesting box but they were pretty deteremined by now!

 

also a deep bed of straw so the eggs get hidden was suggested our 2 always empty the nesting box before they lay so was no help for us but worth a try, have to say that I several times found Rosie with her head buried under Willow in the nesting box actually looking to see if the egg was there yet :!::!:

 

also an option are bumper bits which are little clips you put on there beaks (also very useful when introducing new hens) these stopped them pecking.... for a whole week we were so happy that weekbecause we had reached the point where the first thing we asked each other in the morning was 'any eggs' and the reply 'yes broken' was enough to ruin our whole day, so from last summer the problem persisted, better on nice sunny days and if they are out a lot and with a drop off in the winter as only one hen was laying but never solved!

 

I have to say our eventual solution was to get another eglu and 5 more hens :wink: I think though with hindsight if we had jumped in quicker with bumper bits we might have broken the habit before it became well established there is a sticky somewhere about bumper bits they are only 10p each or something. Oh and one other thing that some people have built is a rollaway nesting box but that is tricky unless you have a separate run

 

 

we just got a new girl called Daisy too :) (except Murdo insists she be known as Daisy the Cow!!)

 

hopefully your broken egg was just a one off and things will settle down but think the best advice is really try and break the habit early

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there were some insides left but it had been soaked up by the straw. It was Daisy's egg that was squashed both times, there was a perfect one from her just the day after I got her.

 

I'll keep an eye on all 3 of them and now I've got a second eglu I think I will open it up for them to use during the day as an extra egg laying place

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About a month ago we went through a spell of egg eating. To be honest it was a bit of a relief to find out that the girls had been eating Junes eggs, as we have had an on-off rat problem through all the gardens in my area. I kept finding crackecd eggs with most of their contents missing and had assumed the worst (rat grrrr)

 

It was only when I found June and Audrey with congealed egg yolk on their combs that I worked out who the offenders were LOL

 

We tried a paste of mustard/cayenne pepper in a hollow egg shell & an old golf ball. What actually seemed to work was me watching over June as she laid each day and removing the egg straight away. Of course I couldn't do this every day so we missed a few.

 

 

What we've since worked out is that they seem quite happy to leave an undamaged egg, but if it gets cracked (June is a bit of a clumsy cluck) they can't resist it. Proof of this has come in the last week....since introducing the new girls, June has decided to boycott the eglu and has been laying in a straw filled box in the kitchen each day. Each time she lays, she's quite happy to hop off and leave the egg behind undamaged.

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