My eco solution to rat problems

[Clur]

Despite all our best efforts, our hens ignore the nest box in the Eglu and lay in the bushes. After a game of 'hunt the egg' we usually find several eggs. More recently however, we've not found ANY eggs (and we don't have a huge garden) and I'm in process of worming the girls with Flubenvet again.

 

Yesterday when I was raking over our raised beds, I found an egg-shell just under the surface of the soil. At first I thought it was a whole egg, but there was a section taken from the top of the egg so all shell no egg.

 

The only thing we can think might steal eggs are rats, but our Patterdale Terrier hasn't shown any signs of detecting them. When we last had rats (in our composter) she hunted them down and caught them.

 

What else could be stealing and eating the eggs? This is the only reason we can think of, for having no eggs for the past few weeks!

[Clur]

Meant to say - our raised beds are fenced off so the chickens can't get in them at all.

[Chucky Mama]

What about your Patterdale terrier. My dog loves eating softies or any broken eggs when I collect the eggs and I caught her in the run yesterday helping herself to one that had been laid there. She would have no hesitation eating any eggs laid in the a garden (she always leaves the shells).

[Henslaved]

Sometimes when I am doing a bit of gardening I find buried eggs in the soil (usually when I've stuck the hand fork in it ). Don't want to worry you but I have read somewhere that foxes will bury them and come back for them later. Have a look round the garden for scat.

[Jools]

Other birds will steal / eat eggs - magpies, crows etc. I have a sneaky egg layer who insists on hiding hers, though she tends to lay in the same place until she realises she's been discovered. After getting fed up with staking her out to find her latest stash, I think I've solved the problem by making her a secret nest in a wood pile and leaving some pot eggs in there all the time. It's an old plastic pet carrier with a bit of bedding in the bottom and I chose the wood pile as that was her latest hiding place. So far it's working - she lays her egg safely in there, I collect it but she still sees the other eggs in there and thinks she's winning. It might be worth a try.

[Daphne]

I think I've solved the problem by making her a secret nest in a wood pile and leaving some pot eggs in there all the time. It's an old plastic pet carrier with a bit of bedding in the bottom and I chose the wood pile as that was her latest hiding place. So far it's working - she lays her egg safely in there, I collect it but she still sees the other eggs in there and thinks she's winning. It might be worth a try.

 

She sounds like a candidate for Mastermind Mine can't work out how to get out of the run when the door is open, let alone practise advanced thinking techniques and feats of memory

[Jools]

 

Fortunately she can't count ................. yet!!

[Olly]

Foxes steal eggs and bury them. That would (unfortunately) be my best guess - but that would suggest the foxes and the hens are in the garden at the same time, and I think if that were the case you'd have more to worry about than just buried eggs!

[Clur]

No sign of foxes thankfully. The egg that was buried was all shell and no egg - just a circle of shell neatly broken away at one end. Definitely not our Patterdale stealing them either as has no way into the raised bed area either.

 

I'll definitely try the nest/pot egg idea - we have a disused composter they get into, and I can try that!

 

 

Still puzzled though!

[fluffy chick]

Could your chickens be eating them?

[Henslaved]

"it appears to be foxes that bury eggs of all kinds in gardens. They gently pick them up in their mouth and carry it to a safe place, dig a hole and come back later to eat it."

 

"Today I saw the local fox digging in my garden, he picked up an egg in his mouth and gently carried it away a safe distance, but I could still clearly see him. He then broke open a hole and licked the insides out cleanly."

 

"Another way of discovering that you have visiting foxes is finding whole eggs buried in the lawn or in a plant pot. Foxes are very dexterous and can handle, bury and dig up eggs without breaking them."

Mrs Moate found several hen's eggs in her garden, buried individually just below the surface. She asked me the inevitable question: What indeed had buried them?

 

"Well, in my opinion, Mrs Moate, it was definitely a fox. It most probably had dined well and its stomach would be bloated so it buried those eggs for safe keeping, when it would be short of food.

 

In any case, foxes – especially old foxes – bury eggs until they grow rotten. Probably they like the taste of rotten eggs."

 

Sorry, I still think it's Mr. Fox that's the culprit, hope I'm wrong though .

[Clur]

Thanks for the warning Henslaved - we'll be extra vigilant and fox conscience as a precaution, just in case!

[sparkysmum]

Last year we discovered that crows were stealing our pekin eggs

[Lavenders_Blue]

I think I might suspect magpies or crows too. I think if it were foxes you would might have seen some other evidence by now but it would still be sensible to be aware that there could be a fox around.

[Clur]

Still no evidence of foxes, but have spotted magpies and crows in the garden, and think they might be responsible. I have a couple of pot eggs in the nesting box to try and persuade the girls to lay there again, and will see what happens!

[Ron]

I had never heard of this however we have seen a fox or two recently in our neighborhood. I have found two buried in my flower pots last week . We had a duck setting on ten eats for fifteen days and then one morning five were missing. We haven’t seen the duct since that evening. Very interesting. Thanks for this information. 

[Tom Symon]

We became aware a week ago that some of our chickens’ eggs were going missing. Tonight we found a wild rabbit running out of the run with an egg in its mouth! We live in the country and there are hundreds of rabbits around. We have stopped planting bedding plants in the garden because the rabbits just eat them, but I never suspected a rabbit as the egg thief! How do we stop the thefts?

[EZoverunder]

Rats could be the culprits, but sometimes it's other critters like snakes, magpies, or even other hens. Setting up a trail cam might help catch the egg thief in the act. Good luck solving the mystery!