- Thread starter
- #81
I am still dealing with an egg-eater and I still don't know who it is. I have a couple guesses though. One of my hens lays weak-shelled eggs and I think those are the ones that keep getting eaten. I call them "Saturn eggs" because they are speckled with a ring of no speckles around the middle. I think that hen was in the nest boxes today so I sat in the coop and waited for her to lay an egg for a long time, but she got up, sang the egg song, and left without anything in the box! How frustrating!
So far I've tried increasing the protein, curtains on the nest boxes, roll-away nest box trays (modified paint trays in my case - they definitely don't work perfectly), making oyster shells easier to see and more accessible. Currently giving the hen I suspect has weak eggshells daily calcium tablets to see if that helps. If it doesn't I will fill some eggs with mustard or something else that the chickens might regret eating. After that I think I will have exhausted all my options except to cull the culprit. Of course, I would hate to do that, especially if it's the hen I think it is...
Here are what my nest boxes look like now. My mom sewed the curtains for me. The chickens had no problems adjusting to them.
So far I've tried increasing the protein, curtains on the nest boxes, roll-away nest box trays (modified paint trays in my case - they definitely don't work perfectly), making oyster shells easier to see and more accessible. Currently giving the hen I suspect has weak eggshells daily calcium tablets to see if that helps. If it doesn't I will fill some eggs with mustard or something else that the chickens might regret eating. After that I think I will have exhausted all my options except to cull the culprit. Of course, I would hate to do that, especially if it's the hen I think it is...
Here are what my nest boxes look like now. My mom sewed the curtains for me. The chickens had no problems adjusting to them.
