Catching egg eating chickens

[savingdogs]

Anyone have a good idea of how to catch the chickens that are eating eggs? I've begun to have a big problem with this and I want to cull the right ones.

I plan on having chicken for dinner this week obviously. With relish!

 

[2dream]

Couple of things - game cam set up in the chicken house. Or you can do what I did before I got the game camera. At night I would go to the chicken coop and catch a couple of hens, place them in an old rabbit hutch I had. If I had broke, cracked eggs the next day I knew it was not them. Put a red (or whatever color) zip tie around one of their legs and put them back into the pen. I kept doing that until I went through all the hens until I discovered it was not the hens or the rooster. It was a dang mouse who had built a nest under the nest box, chewed a hole through the bottom and was eating my eggs.

About a year later I did the same thing to discover that I had a young rooster who was eating eggs. He sure did make good stew.

Edited to add: the mouse did not eat the shells. The hens apparently cleaned that part up after the mouse cracked the egg and lapped up all the goodie. But on occasion I would find the egg shell squashed up in the bottom of the nest box. I also found a few eggs on occasion that had a small hole in them. I guess I got there before the mouse had time to finish getting the egg cracked open.

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

you can also put the kibosh on this by taking up the eggs during the day (so they forget about it) and over on BYC there is a lot of talk about filling an empty egg with mustard and letting them have it. yikes!

 

[lalaland]

I can tell you that mustard filled eggs don't work. I have had luck with a glass egg, the eggs in the nest with the glass egg don't get eaten. Am looking for those alabaster eggs, or marble eggs that were so popular a few years back, that would give them a heck of a headache

I have posted the same problem right here a week or so back, one suggestion I got was to bait an egg with food coloring and watch to see whose beak was colored.

Was interested to hear about the mouse eating the egg, that could definitely be part of my egg thieving chicken issue. But, now they have learned!

Good luck!

good to nip it in the bud as it is definitely learned behavior.

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

hey lala!

 

[TanksHill]

Am looking for those alabaster eggs, or marble eggs that were so popular a few years back, that would give them a heck of a headache .

Not sure if this helps but every time I go to a national park gift shop I buy a stone, I think granite, egg. The shops are that Xanterra company that runs the gift shops for all the national parks. They all pretty much carry the same thing with different themes. I looked on line but they didn't have the eggs listed.

Maybe you live near one????

OMG look at this!!
http://shop.ebay.com/?_from=R40&_trksid=p3907.m570.l1313&_nkw=stone+egg&_sacat=See-All-Categories

 

[mandieg4]

I bought a ceramic egg at Cracker Barrel for $2. You might want to mark it somehow though. My 10yo gathered eggs for me one day and put the ceramic one in a carton with the regular eggs. Luckily my FIL got that carton instead of one of my customers. He spent several minutes trying to crack that egg with no luck!

 

[lalaland]

yes! those eggs are eggzactly what I am looking for - just don't want to pay the 8 bucks of shipping.

I don't know if we hav ecracker barrerls in mn, but I'm sure I will keep looking and will find some!

 

[deb4o]

Lala, are there any ceramic shops in your area?

I have done ceramics for years, and any shop should have egg moulds. They don't cost much and you get to paint them the way you would like, just think of all the cool colors and designs you could come up with. Can you just imagine what the hens would think of wacky colored eggs!

Just a thought.

 

[Kim_NC]

Couple of things - game cam set up in the chicken house. Or you can do what I did before I got the game camera. At night I would go to the chicken coop and catch a couple of hens, place them in an old rabbit hutch I had. If I had broke, cracked eggs the next day I knew it was not them. Put a red (or whatever color) zip tie around one of their legs and put them back into the pen. I kept doing that until I went through all the hens until I discovered it was not the hens or the rooster. It was a dang mouse who had built a nest under the nest box, chewed a hole through the bottom and was eating my eggs.

About a year later I did the same thing to discover that I had a young rooster who was eating eggs. He sure did make good stew.

Edited to add: the mouse did not eat the shells. The hens apparently cleaned that part up after the mouse cracked the egg and lapped up all the goodie. But on occasion I would find the egg shell squashed up in the bottom of the nest box. I also found a few eggs on occasion that had a small hole in them. I guess I got there before the mouse had time to finish getting the egg cracked open.

We recently had a similar experience with a SKUNK! Then one morning I (about 10 days ago), I was up very early. Out the bathroom window, I saw a skunk dash into the one of the chicken runs by the moonlight. Next day, I caught the bold little SOB munching on eggs in a nestbox in broad daylight!

Posted a pic on facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/MillRiverFa...4&set=a.159692447391338.44268.148784915148758

I need a game cam. Hmmmm.....maybe Christmas!