What makes hens eat their eggs

And there was heap as only hens can do, in the coop as I had noticed it and planned to clean them out. Any suggestions? Its not the dog as hens in wired coop. We were doing some work on the outside of the chicken coup and actually watch three hens lay an egg, they then three of them broke it, ate it to the point there was absolutely no trace of the egg. The shell and everything was gone!

Thanks for the tips! My girls have been great layers, they free range all day, have a great coup, all summer I would lick them up and gather eggs. I only have 6 hens. THEN I dropped an egg, got busy walked away. Chickens ate it and now they are eating eggs! I did the mustard egg, they ate it. I put in fake eggs, they got the real ones. I had 1 or 2 chickens that were eating eggs. I have not an egg eaten since. It worked!

I appreciated seeing a picture of those curtains so I put some shades up last night. The flock spent their entire morning staring at them! Then our present laying hen courageously entered through the veil and laid her egg by afternoon.

Fingers crossed for another successful egg laying day tomorrow. Thanks so much for sharing your wonderful suggestions.

We find yolk in the next box occasionally. This morning I caught one of our hens running around with egg shell in her mouth! Otherwise our 8 girls do fine. Good article. Egg eating amongst hens is a common and indeed big problem for Farmers. At least we now know how to minimize the vice. Our girls have been laying for several months. I just went out to check for eggs and 1 was actually on the ground a ways from the coop and had been eaten. Did something get in there and take an egg, did one of the girls lay an egg outside of the coop?

They have not eaten their eggs before. We keep the area clean, fresh water almost daily. The most probable is the two you mentioned. She laid and it may have cracked and tempted her to eat or it got stolen and devoured. I have had the same concern several times, a way to determine this is keep them in the coop for the day and see if they lay normal and there is no mess in the nest. If so, you can conclude fairly certainly its a predator.

If there is a mess, they are getting their own eggs, take proper measures written out in the article. Mustard eggs!! Are eggs safe to eat if your chickens have been eating some of their own eggs? Should we throw them out? They are safe to eat and they most certainly got the necessary vitamins they need, including calcium from the shell. My chickens are about three years old.

Extremely friendly. They have a high protein diet which is their normal feed along with the fact that we get them crickets and worms from when my husband goes fishing. They also get a variety of fruits and vegetables and greens every day.

They roam on 1 acre. Which they all get along very well. They all like to sleep around each other. But as soon as she walks and lays she turns around along with the other two chickens and they just start eating it.

Not sure what I should do. There are six water buckets scattered throughout our yatd as well as a little pool. Their coop Is shaded.

Nearby their own herb garden. Here is a functional one. I have this problem as well. It started when an egg or two got crushed a few months ago. Right now I try to get to the coop often, but sometimes I cannot do that.

I will try the mustard trick — I already have a ceramic egg with them, but am also adding two more. I have no idea which hens are eating my eggs. Born on site back in July. I have 3 hens. One has never laid. The layer of big eggs stopped for a while then restarted, but the shell is fragile. The non-laying hen sits beside her and gets the egg as soon as it is laid.

They seem to tolerate mustard so now I am trying to remove the egg immediately and replace with a rubber one. My first of 5 layers layed an egg right in front of me, while I was sitting in the rocker, turned around and broke it, taking the shell with her while the other 4 ate it all up! She ate the shell and stood 2 feet away from the others, with her back turned.

What the hell is happening?! Hi there! Love The Happy Chicken Coop! Anyway, you stated that Henson eating their eggs is a form of cannibalism. I went looking for a list of treats that chickens like and came across one that said to throw a left over chicken carcass from dinner into the pen for them to peck clean. I was appalled by that suggestion. Are they serious? I have some [new] chickens just now coming into their first laying season.

There is a separate coop with nesting boxes, plenty of boxes for the chicks. Problem is I cant get them to lay their eggs in there. It did with mine! For some, the very last thing to do is cull. Some feel this is incredibly cruel, others view it as a flock problem that must be dealt with seriously. Personally, I can see both sides. Egg eating CAN be a hard problem to solve and it can spread to other hens if not solved effectively.

At the end of the day, it is a personal decision that we each have to make. Are your chickens eating eggs? What have you done to break the habit? Let us know in the comments! Originally published in and regularly vetted for accuracy. Will horseradish hurt them? An idea anyway. I have the same problem and running out of patience. We put curtains on the front of the nest boxes.

What a miracle! They immediately stopped eating the eggs! Went from one a day to eight or nine. The only problem is that if a foot blocks the egg from rolling, it is still in danger, but otherwise the hen is thwarted by the law of gravity. I think the reason why is so they do not get in the habit of eating egg shells and correlate eggs as a food source. Nutritionally egg shells would be an excellent source of calcium to make more eggs. Calcium concentration and useable levels is fairly low in egg shells.

On average they would have to eat six whole egg shells to replace the calcium content of producing one egg. With oyster shell, the useable calcium is at a much higher concentration, its just more efficient.

If you feed whole egg shells to your chickens, they will look like regular eggs and this will actually encourage them to eat their own eggs.

I have tried both egg shells and oyster shells for my hens and personally think that they lay better when fed egg shells. To discourage egg eating, I collect a large number of egg shells in a box, rinsing them with water before placing them in the box, so that all of the egg white is gone. When I have enough shells, I lay them out on a cookie sheet and place them in a preheated degree F oven and bake them for minutes, or less.

Facebook Twitter Instagram. Photo by Steve Taysom. Ceramic Eggs. Or the chicken eggs free. Tom Siebe on July 12, at AM. Paula on July 11, at AM. Lezlie on July 10, at PM. Elaine on July 13, at AM. Elora Prettyman on July 10, at AM. Jennifer on July 11, at PM. Bob Burnham on July 10, at AM. Jill Lockey on July 9, at PM. David H. Colburn on July 9, at PM. Linda on July 9, at PM. I would love to see a picture of this!

Pam on July 9, at PM. Joe Earley on July 9, at PM. I would love to see pictures! Shane on July 9, at PM. RJ on July 9, at PM. Eating their own egg shells can teach them to recognize their own eggs as food. Scotty on July 10, at AM.