What if you have some chickens in your flock that are eating their own eggs?
What do you do about that?
Why does it happen?
It typically happens by accident, usually.
For whatever reason they crack an egg when they lay it
Or if there’s overcrowding two eggs can collide and crack
They try it because they check everything with their mouth, and they realize they like it
Then after that they start doing it on purpose
Once one hen starts doing it, she’ll teach the others to do it because they actually like the taste of raw eggs
They think they’re really good.
Another reason could be lack of protein
So make sure if your girls don’t get to go out and free range, give them enough protein snacks
What do you do about it?
Well, you’ve got a couple of choices
You can cull them, but you’d be getting rid of an otherwise perfectly fine hen just because she happened to be eating some eggs
So that might not be your number one choice
Another choice would be to make a mustard egg
What you do is put a pinhole in both ends of the egg, blow out the insides of the egg
And then you refill it with mustard, spicy mustard
The idea is that chickens don’t like mustard or spicy
And they will stop eating the eggs because they’ll decide they’re gross
That didn’t work for me.
I actually have had some egg eaters, but that idea didn’t work for me at all
Another thing to do is to always collect your eggs as quickly as possible throughout the day
If they’re not laying around, they don’t have the chance to break open
What I chose to do, which might work for you…
I chose to make what’s called rollaway nest boxes
They’re on a slight slant so that when the egg is laid…
It rolls under the gap to the collection area and then the hens can’t get to them
Even if the hens come back in the box later
Or other hens come in to lay after them and they all lay in the same spot
The eggs are out of the way and they can’t get to them in order to grab them or peck at
That is my solution
It’s worked really well
It’s the best solution and it’s really easy to come in and collect the eggs
There’s plenty of plans on the internet to build one of these
This Roll Away egg boxes gets rid of the whole egg eating issue
Remember … Be The Organic U – Feed Your Soul
#BeTheOrganicU #organic #homestead #sustainability #agriculture #coops #farming #gardening #chickens #backyard #eggs #farmlife #homesteading #permaculture
