You need to try various things, since what you have isn't working. Watch your birds--do they gobble the eggs' contents first or the shell? If it's the shell, offer more calcium. If it's the contents (like the yolk), offer more protein in their diet. Do they have access daily to grass and dirt--things to peck and scratch around in?

Your hens sound bored. Give them something else to peck at, like raw corn on the cob or a cabbage on a string (hung so they cannot hurt themselves). Collect eggs several times a day. Use semi-enclosed, darkened nest boxes. Place some stone or marble fake eggs that HURT when pecked. Place new nest boxes that funnel the laid eggs into an enclosure that the hens cannot reach (you see these wire types at county fairs).

Go at this problem hammer and tongs. Try everything, not just one or two. :)

Velvet ~:>

I've only seen this with inside hens before. The ones that free range I've never noticed it. Maybe they are hungry or maybe they aren't getting something that they normally get from scratching in the dirt. We now have a good layer of dirt on the floor in our coop and I haven't noticed any eating eggs lately. My hens have all but stopped laying too though. I'm trying to figure out that problem now.

Diggity, you could try putting a bunch of fake eggs in the boxes, they would get pretty frustrated pecking to no avail and maybe give up and move on to their chicken food.

Just a thought :)

-Sheila

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I love the fake eggs idea! I wonder where I can find some fake eggs that look convincing.

I can imagine the kind of funnel nesting boxes that you refer to, Velvet, but I don't think I've seen one in recent memory, so I'm not sure how to go about building them. Does anyone happen to have a picture or plan handy? I'm just wondering how the egg rolls into the funnel. Wouldn't that mean the hen was laying it on a slope?

I'm thinking of rebuilding their nesting boxes. Maybe the boxes are too open - that could be part of the problem. I should probably rebuild them anyway, since the hens have the habit of walking on the roof of the nesting boxes. The roof is sloped, but apparently the slope is not great enough because they love to hang out up there and so of course it gets pretty gross with poop. Maybe if I rebuild the entire row of 3 nesting boxes - this time with a greater roof angle and narrower opening in the front, maybe that will help?

Sigh... I guess I have high maintenance hens. :-) They get everything they want - a fairly clean coop with plenty of space, they spend lots of time out doors, get organic food, plus snacks of bird food and kitchen scraps. I wonder if the propensity for egg eating is genetic? All the hens that I've caught eating eggs have been from the same bloodline (mixed leghorn, barred rock, RI red). We've had several hens from other bloodlines and I don't think any of them have ever had the taste for eggs.

Thanks for the ideas!
-Diggity

I've been curious about the egg eating thing. Maybe it was just a soft-shelled egg that got broken. It would be natural for a chicken to want to 'clean up the mess' before a predator smelled it. I have never seen any of my chickens actually eating out of their nest boxes, but occasionally there will be a partial shell left so I know somebody ate the contents. The shell is always very fragile.

I regularly feed my hens whole eggs in the winter for extra protein and we don't have a market in winter for all of our eggs. I either scramble the eggs and crush the shells or if they eggs aren't cracked, I boil the whole eggs and crush them. They definitely love eggs but evidently not the ones they lay in the nest.

Maybe your hens are just tidying up their nest.

Sorry, I didn't mean 'a funnel' literally. :) I meant that once the hen lays the egg, the floor of the nest box is canted at an angle so that the eggs roll down then drop through a slot at the back or front of the box, out of reach of the birds so they can't physically reach it to peck it.

I've seen wooden eggs at the craft store and on online craft sites.

Have any pictures of your set up to share? It might help...

Velvet ~:>

egg eating is a habit, they do it cause eggs are good to eat! It is very rarely a nutritional thing.
golf balls work great as faux eggs, put 4-6 in each nest box. Egg eating can be a real hard habit to break. vevet gave some good pointers re; cabbages, et cetera.but that wont stop them, it may help prevent future outbreaks tho+ the chooks will just enjoy it.

fancifowl, shhh! Don't tell those hens the eggs are tasty! :)

Velvet ~:>