I've got some egg eating chickens.

That don't like to share their eggs with us. I've borrowed some very simple to make 'roll away' nest boxes that are designed to stop this, I'll get some pictures so that you will know how to make your own.

To make doubley sure, I've also got some plastic 'spectacles' that I'm also going to put on them. These are also designed to stop egg eating. Once again, picture of these will follow this evening when I get Kaz to down load them :oops:  :oops:  :oops:

Roll away boxes.








The bottom of the box is on a slight slope. The hen lays the egg and it rolls down the slope to the back of the box where it slips down a slit and out of the way of the egg eating chicken.

Perhaps a strip of foam stuck to the surface that the egg drops on.

I have recently just started raising chickens. I do it for the meat and eggs. This past week I have not received a single egg. Today, I decided to play a trick on them. I took each one individually, put them in a caged area and then dropped in two eggs. Out of my 15 chickens, only 5 cared to eat the eggs. By eating the eggs, I don't mean they eventually did it. As SOON as they saw the egg, they went absolutely nuts. I now have those 5 separated and we'll see if I get any eggs tomorrow.

I've found two places so far -
http://www.chicken-house.co.uk/rollaway_nestboxes.htm
and
http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Annes-Poultry-and-Garden-Supplies


This morning, one egg untouched, and another one in pieces.  There seems to be a theme running here - every day its an egg that's slightly more speckly than theothers with a really, really thin shell - I have four birds all of different sorts, and I haven't yet worked out who's eggs they are (we've only had the girls for a fortnight).

So I don't know whether its being eaten because the shell is so thin it's easy to get into; or whether its being crushed after its been laid and then eaten afterwards; or whether it's just that I've always got to the other eggs first before they get eaten as well ... very irritating all round :evil:

There must be something in the air ... someone out of my four is also eating at least one egg a day; tried the mustard trick 2 days running, thought we'e nailed it, but this morning same again ... and when I looked a bit further under the wood shavings, found the remains of another one which I think must have been from yesterday.

Following the advice elsewhere on this forum I've been looking at the plastic rollaway nest box inserts (for a fiver they're probably a lot more reliable than anything I could make myself, and I know they'll fit!) - but can't quite work out how they stop the chicken from getting at the egg once it's rolled down the little slope ... I'm guessing the slope goes at the back of the nest box (that's only just occurred to me, I had been thinking they were the other way round but don't think that would make sense), but can anyone give me more advice??  And do chickens mind sitting in a plastic box instead of a nice cosy bed of shavings?

I treated us to the Solway Feders 10 rollaways nest boxes last year when I had a little bit of money from a pension payout.  they hade the plastic inserts.  It took the girls a couple of days to get used to them, and one or 2 of the girls won't lay in them.  they prefer the floor!!!  But the rollaway insert has a bit at the front and the egg rolls into it and there's a metal flap at the front that covers it over so the chooks can't get to them.  They just roll down the slope though, they don't drop, so don't get broken.

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But with teh one that bodger has shown, I think I'd definitely put a bit of foam or something under it to cusion the fall, you know what eggs are like!!!!    

Oh just remembered, you can get either front or rear rollaway!!!!  I wanted the rear roll out, so i could just open a door at the back and get the eggs out, but Brian wanted the front rollouts. Then after I got them he said maybe the rear rollouts would have been better??   Grrrrrrrrr

So I tried RER's trick of trying out each hen with a tempting egg (unbroken) - and not one of them took the bait; they were each more interested in getting out of the pen to go look for worms...

So now I'm thinking it must be something to do with one particular hen laying very very thin shelled eggs that break easily ... but I've no idea how to solve that one!

I've had the plastic blinkers on the chickens that were egg eating and I,m starting to get eggs.