amongst my no laying hens, I have an &%#%&* egg eater. she eats everything but the shell. when I find her, she's a gonner.. how do I find this nasty thief?
another problem
You had better hurry up, because one will teach another.
At night, go in and catch a chicken. Put it in a cage.
If it lays and doesn't eat a egg, then thats not the one.
my friends went through that and then butchered all the
hens.
I let mine out to free range all day. No stress, no egg eating.
let me know
sheri
Great idea, except I have almost 70 hens. this could take a while
It's very hard for an egg-eater to do their dirty work without getting a dirty face. Look for the yolky face and beak.
In the meantime, several wooden eggs in the box will help deter the culprits. I get mine cheap at Michael's craft store.
Thus the old saying........".Egg on your face" ? LOL
I hope you catch her soon. She's a good candidate for the stew pot. I think I may have one too. Drat !
Yep, Thanks to Zeppy's method............. I just went out there and found out just who the egg-eater was. She had feed stuck all over it from the stickiness of the egg.
Thanks Zep. Now, ......... who has a good dumplin recipe ?
PeggieK, LOLOLOLOLO!!! Here 2 1/2 to 3 lbs chicken
4 c water,2 c chicken broth, 1 carrot chopped,1 oinon cut into quarters,1 stalk of celery chopped,1/2 t salt, 1 c milk, 1/4 t fresh
pepper. Dumplings ; 2 c all purpose flour, 1/2 t baking soda, 1/2 t
salt, 3T shortening, 3/4 c buttermilk..
Tracey
I totally agree. free ranging keeps their minds off it. I'm glad you found the culprit, though. Mine only eat eggs occasionally in the middle of winter when they bust open from being frozen, and the gals are really bored.
I've got her isolated from the others...........don't need them to follow suit.
It's a shame, but I guess I'll take her off egg pellets and start fattening her up.
Maybe I'll try Zeppy's method of putting some wooden eggs in the nest first.
I guess if she pecks them and they don't break, maybe she'll give it up and lose interest ?
Has anyone had any experience with an egg eating hen being reformed ?
I wonder what the percentages of hens that start that ever stop it. Maybe it could depend on how much time and effort I can spend on trying different things to make her stop. It's coming up on my busy time of year, so I don't know how much time I will have to fool with the situation.
I supopose I could send her to rehab with Brittney and Lindsey and the rest of the celebrities? lol She's one of the Bad Girls now.
I know it's happened for me in the past but after introducing wooden eggs it did stop.
Hey, that's good news. Maybe there's hope after all. I was dreading having to do anything with her. It takes soooooooooo long to raise them to the age of laying, you just hate to give up on them. Thanks Zeppy.
Where you been lately ? Haven't seen you post in a while. I bet you've been over in the gardening forums. :)) ............. Anyway, I'm glad you're back.
Me, too!
Peggie, maybe with wooden eggs, plenty of exercise and a little bit of isolation she'll snap out of it. Hope so!
Hey Peggy , do try adding Oyster shells to her diet! Shes probably needing Calcium !
Chickens like all animals ( including us) will crave weird things when their bodies need it! I remember craving Asphalt , soooooo weird, when I was pregnant. I couldnt get enough of anything green , mustard greens, turnips collards, cabbage,even lettuce! the doctor said I was deficient in Iron and my body was craving it! He said the smell of paving asphalt just triggered the craving!!!!
My daughter craved chalk,while she was pregnant! She had a calcium deficiency! Soooo , maybe your chicken needs calcium!
I chewed ice throughout my pregnancies. My poor teeth.
Peggie, I hope it works. And you guessed it! -- I've been getting the garden ready. This forum is so busy lately, I haven't been keeping up with it so well. We've got bunnies now, so I'm sure I'll have questions about them sometime soon. Good luck to your naughty hen: hope she mends her ways.
Thanks Zeppy. Happy gardening and bunny keeping to you. Do you need your bunny book back ? Let me know.
Eufaula, thanks for the post about the oyster shells. Unfortunately, I don't believe that's it. I wish it was......that would be so much easier. She gets plenty of oyster shells daily. Our feed store sells it really cheap in big 5 lb. bags for only a dollar, so I always get it when I buy feed. I think she has a good diet with not much lacking, as she gets egg pellets, oyster shell, corn chops and everything we have left over. I hardly have use for my garbage disposal anymore. The stinker probably is better nourished than we are. LOL
Like you, I had cravings when preg. also. I couldn't get enough chicken livers. I would go to KFC and buy them by the pint and eat every one. Crazy !
I hate any kind of liver, always have. Can't even stand the smell of it cooking.
After the baby came, I thought they still sounded good, so sent DH to get some for me. Took one bite and gagged, gagged, gagged. Uck !
I guess our bodies crave what they need.......even if we are apposed. LOL
Backydhns, I think I'll see if I can find some of the wooden eggs in town. I have golf balls out there now so they will know where to lay...... but that dosen't seem to impress her much. I wish I could free range them, but too many dogs around (not ours) . That would probably help a lot. I'm sure they get tired of looking at the same old coop each day. I try to keep new and different things in there to fight boredom, but........ maybe not enough.
That naughty, naughty girl...............of yours, Peggie. Seems like we all have one in every bunch! :) It's definitely a problem that once isolated, will stop. A dear friend of mine didn't catch hers in time and she ended up having to wipe out that entire coop!!!! They got to eating all the eggs and almost as fast as they were laid, she said. YIKES! Glad you caught your little Britney-Lindsey wanna be. lol I too keep wooden eggs around just in case. My local craft store sells them super cheap, but I have been known to use a plastic easter egg before! lol Let us know how her rehab goes!
Belinda
Peggie, no, no, I don't need the book! It's yours. These are just two pet bunnies.
I keep plastic easter eggs around for the super broodies. They like setting on eggs, even if they are plastic ones. the dears.
Oh my goodness. Super broodies. that is too funny.
My husband, while I was away in colorado for a month, emptied
the nest boxes into the fridgie. He also collected from outside
nests, etc. It turns out he was collecting the setting batches.
Folks were cracking an egg for breakfast and getting a semi
formed black chicken instead. (disgusting).....
so I now have 2 or 3 girls setting full time on a clutch of eggs.
they will hatch pretty soon, and those will be my egg layers
and meat chickens for free. : ) they are a mix of Dominiques
and Cornish x and black jersey giants. who knows what will
come out of those eggs? I just want to keep the dominiques
breeding, not the Jersey giants, but they like the dominiques
studly men too much also. Its a veritable pleasure palace here. : )
How wonderful to put plastic easter eggs there and collect the
other ones. I will have to try that.
I HATE egg eaters. UGH!!! If I find an eaten egg, then I will
look for the dirty faced one and know it is that one. Coop it up
with some plastic and wooden eggs and retrain it.
Just got 100 cornish x for meat birds from holland, mi.
there was a large die off, 10 from 100 , highly unusual for me.
they arecoming along nicely. Have them on baby starter feed
thats medicated. will take them off in about 2 weeks and then
give them all 22%.
We are going to have a chicken processing barbeque
in two weeks. our freinds are bringing their whiz bang chicken
plucker, killing cones, straight knife and help. We figure we
can do about 50 chickens in about 2 hours with their help.
This is great!!!!! They built their whiz bang themselves, and
it cost them about 450$ to do it. they are also bringing
some hamburger from their steers for the cookout.
Regards to all
sheri
if you put your hens in a dark nest they will usually not be interested in the eggs and only go in to lay or set.hope this helps.
shannon
That's right. One way to make a nest darker (though I have the traditional large box 'dark nest') is to hang strips of cloth like a curtain at its entrance.
That makes sense. They can't see once the sun starts going down.
So if the nest is dark, they can't see the eggs well enough to have much interest.
Good info.