[chickenlicken]

Hi all, We have 5 chickens, our Bluebelle started laying at the weekend but one of the other hens has started eating her eggs???

I have just been in the garden and could hear lots of scratching about in the nest boxes and could see the girlie who is laying was in as was another girl and I was hopeful they might both lay.  The banging about continued and I decided to investigate only to find a very messy nest box and remains of a shell??

Why do they do this and any advice on what to do to stop it would be very welcome!

[GARRY]

i keep a eye on the hens laying,and remove the eggs soon as .that is what i am doing at the moment untill it stops ..i hope..

[chickenlicken]

So yours doing it too?

I am in and out with school runs all the time but check as often as I can, I was worried that I shouldn't disturb any of them while they were in laying, is it ok to open up and have a check???

New to this and only 4th egg so really disappointed this has happened so early - any idea whether it could improve when they are all laying??

Have you tried the mustard powder etc in a blown egg trick??

[Roughlee Handled]

How many nest boxes do you have chickenlicken?

[andreadon]

early on they sometimes lay shell-less eggs (or soft shelled), so they could just have been pecking up that thinking it was food.
if tehy were both ion the box, it could have got trampled too. 

the important thing is if they get the taste that the goodies never get onto a proper shell, cos they might peck at that and break the shell then start eating eggs for real.

We've had plenty of this behaviour (not cracking open eggs, but eating already broken ones) since we started and none of them willingly goes after an egg to eat it.

but keep an eye on it, just in case!

[chickenlicken]

This was a proper hard egg, she hasn't layed any soft shell ones yet, just small but perfect little double yolkers!  The girl that layed was in there and so was one who is not yet laying (the egg-eater)

We have 2 nesting boxes and I had a golf ball in each so they knew where to go, all the noise I could hear (banging) was the golf ball being shoved about while the egg was being eaten - could it be the golf balls that caused the problem???

I thought all my worries would be about the children.........now about the chooks too!!