Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Poultry and Pets => The Hen House => Topic started by: Bev on May 06, 2010, 20:19
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Hi,
I have written to you all about Buffy the egg eating chicken before and you gave me some excellent advise. Well I have tried...
1 Blowing an egg and filling it with mustard - she ate it!
2 Blowing an egg and filling it with Hot Chilli powder and mustard - she ate it!
3 Limestone Flour supplement to try and get her egg shells a bit tougher - didn't seem to make much difference.
4 New brand of food - doesn't seem to have made any difference to the quality of her egg shells
I have also sought advice from a vet, didn't pay for it fortunately, he said it sounds as if she has something wrong with her reproductive tract and usually a hen will start to lay eggs with firm shells again after a moult or after going broody due to changes in hormone levels.
Trouble is she has just this week started to eat everyone elses eggs too - disaster - I think she will have to go! Has any one got any last ideas to try and save Buffy!!! I try to get the eggs out at every oportunity but on the days I work I can't always get them all in the morning and it is about 5pm before my second visit to the hen run and she just can't resist it if she sees an egg lying around.
Problem 2
I managed to get rid of the rats but we have a new rat visiter, I bought a different brand of poison this time and they don't seem to be eating it, does any one know which is their favourite sort? This new one I have looks like brown pellets, are the blue corn sort better?
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You could try a china egg. A few days of trying to break into that might make her lose the habit.
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The only thing I can help you on is Buffy eating the eggs. What I would do is put a few golf balls or possibly rubber eggs in, so that she will peck them and then she might give up pecking the real eggs.
Hope this helps :D
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I don't know if you have tried this but i friend of mine had rats last year and swears by traps baited with meat and fish sauce poured over the trap. Sounds strange i know but it really worked for her and its not expensive. You'll find it in the chinese section in any good supermarket. I wish you luck :)
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Hi,
Thank you so much for your advice. I have a china egg and golf balls so will go and try those straight away.
Don't think I can put meat and fish sauce on the rat trap, I am a bit worried about next doors cats finding it. Thanks for the idea though. I did see 'How Clean is your house' do a rat special on the tv which gave me one or two ideas as well. I am considering buying an expensive electric shock rat trap.
Had a much better time the last two days, managed to get the other 2 eggs out of the hen house before Buffy found them, so she only ate her own, I didn't let them out until 7:45am this morning though and she had eaten hers and one other, at least I got one!
Thanks again,
Bev
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4 golf balls.
1 china egg.
2 blown eggs full of mustard and hot chilli powder!
Buffy has broken into one of the mustard eggs and she has eaten her own egg every day but I have managed to get the other 2 eggs.
Has anyone ever been successful in stopping a hen eating her eggs? I am just wondering if I am fighting a loosing battle?
Bev
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No idea about egg eating chicken! What a nightmare!
Re rats, now, I know a lot more about them!
We're semi rural, edge of water, and my hen palace is a great attraction.
We use Mk4 Fenn traps all year round baited with chook food. Very good a catching the occasional 'big' one passing through and taking an interest. However, we've recently had a family taking advantage of the compost heap and dry stone wall shed base, and little ones won't set the traps off. We've had success with Eradibait, which is a non toxic bait, ideal if there are other non target animals about, which does something to the rats digestive system, resulting in them slipping into a coma and not waking up. You can get it on line.
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make or buy a rollaway nest box :)
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Ooo! That sounds interesting, I will look into that! Thank you.
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if you want to make your own rollaway take a look at this link it shows one version
http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=16490.0
or you can buy some ready made like Grannie Annie did, or adapt your own like Karlooben did using bought inserts.
We did see some at the pig and poultry show called chick boxes and Grannie Annie may be able to tell you more about these as she had a look at them :)
Hope all of that is of some help to you xx
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Hi,
Thankyou! I actually managed to get Buffy's egg today and yesterday! I wonder if the mustard and hot chilli powder and golf balls and china egg are beginning to work!
I am planning to try the roll-away nest box too, there are 3 nest boxes in the hen house and they all favour the same one. They seem to use the floor of the hen house if not that one so not sure what I will do if they all go and lay on the floor!
Guess I will have to figure that one out when it comes to it! Glad I haven't given up on her yet!
Bev
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We have recently had a rat problem that I think eventually we may have sorted. We have tried all sorts of bait but most successful being peanut butter. We left the trap open for a few days for the rats to realise the bait was there and become confident taking it. Then we set it and have managed to catch 4 over 10 days. May be worth a go.
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When we had rats the pest control chap told us to leave checking the bait for a few days as they are suspicious of anything new, use sweet things as trap bait and if you can place bait/trap in a tunnel of some sort they are more likely to try it.
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Hia new to this forum and unsure on your other chat info. Is she after the shell or the contents. Have you tried giving her crushed oyster shells for the calcium or she maybe after extra protein? could try giving her mashed boiled egg and see if it cuts out her cravings. Wish you all the best x
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could try giving her mashed boiled egg and see if it cuts out her cravings.
I respect your advice given to Bev, sjlatty, but I myself wouldn't feed Buffy boiled eggs because she might get addicted to the taste of egg and may continue to eat the raw eggs.
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Hi All,
Thanks for all your ideas.
RE Buffy eating her eggs. I think it is just because her shells are a bit thin and she broke them accidentally a lot then realised they were a tasty snack. :tongue2: The good news is I have managed to get 4 out of 5 of her eggs in the last 5 days so think we are getting there, the golf balls and china eggs seem to be working. I am giving them 2 tubs of grit with crushed oyster shell and also recycling their egg shells by roasting them and crushing them. They do have layers mash and kitchen scraps and they free range for a couple of hours a day so I don't think they can be short of protein.
She has eaten another mustard and hot chilli powder filled egg! :tongue2:
I have designed a roll away insert for my exhisting nest boxes but not carried it out yet as I need to go and buy a bit of wood and since the other methods seem to be working for the moment I have been trying to get my vegetables planted.
If I have understood it right all hens carry a low amount of salmonella and if you feed them egg (or is that chicken meat?) the levels rise until eventually you get unsafe levels so I wouldn't feed her egg but thanks for the tip about protein I will definatley watch and see which kitchen scraps she goes for.
RE the rats. I got the council man out the first time and he bought a poison trap which is a black drainpipe sized horizontal tube with a see through thin tube going vertical, he filled it up with poison to the top of the see through tube so you can see if the poison has been taken from a distance. It is behind my compost heap. I have been out today and bought poison which is whole wheat poison as they still haven't taken the stuff that looks like animal feed pellets.
Does anyone know how to safely dispose of the old poison?
Thanks again,
Bev