What should you do if your chicken is constantly trying to eat her own eggs?
Sometimes when I get to the coop to pick up the eggs for the day, one of my hens has already ruined the egg she layed! I'm very new to keeping chickens and didn't know that they might try to eat their own eggs. How can I keep this from happening? What causes it? Am I doing anything wrong?
Answers ( 1 )
The stuff you pick up living in a rural area!
We don't really know why chickens sometimes break and then eat at or taste their eggs; we have ideas, but, so far, no chicken to human speech translator has been invented, and I think the idea "bird-brain"** may have evolved because chickens aren't always that bright. However, the usual ideas are:
So, what to do?
You need to be vigilant and try it all. It may be that you will need to use three or four ideas at once- but collecting eggs more frequently and replacing eggs with wooden eggs or very firm balls will likely be your best bet.
Good luck.
**Might have been turkeys, of course- domesticated, those are dumb birds.