Poorly chicken

[Chris urban farmer]

Hi All, first time poster so forgive me if I am posting in the wrong place. We have 5 hens and 2 ducks for over 2 years now. Yesterday evening I looked in the nest box of my cube, there was roughly 10 eggs in there. I was in the middle of some gardening jobs and forgot to go back to collect them, So this morning at about 9am I went to get some eggs for my breakfast but they were all gone!!! Not a trace, no broken shells, the straw was dry. The cube is attached to an omlet walk in run, we have noticed what looks like a rats hole in the ground inside the run. Would rats be able to steal all 10 eggs without breaking any? Or is it more likely to be a human thief? We live in a suburb. 

[DanTheChickenMan]

Rats will take eggs but id be very surprised if they could take 10 without smashing them, particularly with the height off the ground on the cube!  More like to be a human thief i would say

[Chris urban farmer]

Thanks Dan. Thats actually more worrying than rats. I work night shifts so its scary that somebody may have been out my back garden at night with my wife and kids at home. 

[DanTheChickenMan]

Then I cant think of someone that is disturbed enough to steal 10 eggs either!  See what the rest say, I've never experienced a similar issue before.  Apart from last easter when my brother thought it would be funny to swap my eggs for creme eggs!

[Luvachicken]

Pretty certain someone had a problem like this once before.

Perhaps taint the eggs with some mustard or ginger so they wouldn't taste nice (I think you inject them with it but not sure)

I think before the owners put something like the chickens had been on some trial drug and it was unsafe to eat any of the eggs (of course they were actually safe)

Or you could try swapping them with hard boiled eggs or eggs that were very out of date - just make sure you know which are the nice eggs though. 

I hope you get to the bottom of it though.

 

[Beantree]

Rats can easily carry off that many eggs in a few minutes and stash them somewhere to eat later. When we bought our house in England the owner said he didn't get any eggs. When he left we found a stash of about 50 egg shells nearby in the undergrowth. They are very dexterous and can pick one up and tuck it under their chin holding it in place with one limb and then exit  using the the other three.

Yes, theft is always a possibility. The only way to eliminate that is to padlock the coop. Worked for us.

[mullethunter]

What you need is a trail cam

[Chris urban farmer]

Thanks guys. I actually wouldn't mind giving the eggs to someone if they wanted them, its just scary that someone was there and we didn't know. We have CCTV but the DVR decided to pack up last week. Franticly ordered a new one last night. A trail cam might also be a good idea, thanks mullethunter. My 8 year old son started selling the eggs on a Saturday only 2 weeks ago and donated half of it to the red cross to help Ukraine. His customers wont be happy this week with the short supply 🙂 

I'm still kinda hoping it was rats , what's the best way to get rid of rats? There is what looks like a rats hole in the ground inside the run. The run is against my boundary wall so they may have burrowed in from my neighbors, under the wall and into the run for a free feed. 

[mullethunter]

What’s the base of your run? Could you slab it?

[MamaCoop]

Hi Chris any news? I have been wondering if you have found out where the eggs had gone? 

[k9003]

Could it be a snake