AUSTRALIAN POULTRY FORUM™

About six months ago we adopted six ex-battery chookies. They free-range with our other poultry.
In the past few weeks I have been puzzled about the sudden lack of eggs - from 11 chooks I have been lucky to get one or two eggs a day, sometimes no eggs at all for days in a row.

A few days ago I heard "hammering" coming from one of the chook houses. (We have a huge chookie yard of about an acre and three converted cubby houses that each seperate flock sleeps in at night and lays in during the day). I went to investigate and one of the ex-battery chooks was repeatedly pecking at an egg in an obvious attempt to break it. Now I realise why I have been getting no eggs!

Now I am aware of it, I have caught her on no less than six occasions trying to crack the eggs and have found evidence of previously broken and eaten eggs. I don't know for sure if it's JUST her, but it's definately always her I catch when I hear the hammering and rush in to rescue the egg.

I tell her off and shoo her out of the house, but she's very determined and the moment I leave the house she's rushing back in to have another go (although I have of course removed the egg). Is there any way to stop this behaviour or is it curtains for her? I was happy to adopt the ex-battery chooks on the understanding that they may not lay or live for very long, but I am not happy for them to be destroying the eggs I do get. I also have light sussex who lay quite well and out of all these hens, I am getting very few eggs because they are being eaten. Whilst I love the chooks, they are not pets, they are there to provide us with eggs in return for their lodgings, so I am not willing to keep them as just pets and get no eggs in return. But happy to try any suggested method first before culling her - I wouldn't take the decision of culling her lightly if there may be another solution.

I should add, I am now checking the houses frequently during the day in a race to get the eggs before she does, but this is a big time waster and I would much prefer to be able to gather the eggs at afternoon feeding (when I go out to give them the kitchen scraps) as I used to do.

I've heard you can break them of the habit sometimes by blowing an egg, filling it with mustard, tobasco, hot chilli sauce that sort of theing. Seal it up and pop it back for her to try. I've not had to do this myself but it seems an easy first step.

The other suggestion is to convert your nesting boxes to be roll away ones. The egg, after it's laid, rolls back to an area that the chickens can't reach. There are several designs out there. I have seen some at backyardchickens.com. From fancy home built ones, to simple plastic tubs raised so the front is higher and with a partition half way down that only lets an egg through - not a hen.

Let us know if you find something that works for you!

Maybe try putting some dummy eggs in the nest boxes. Golf balls are often used as dummy eggs.

Bellsouth sell the roll away nest boxes.

http://eshop.bellsouth.com.au/epages/be ... Nest_Boxes

If it's only one of the hens then you don't want her teaching the other's bad habits, you could try the old fill the empty egg with a hot substance trick or you could dispatch her or relocate her it's all comes down to patience and perseverance and personal choice.

Thanks everyone, they are really eggscellent suggestions!

A few days ago I purchased some wooden eggs which I just happened to stumble across in the junk shop, in the hopes she would give up when she couldn't crack them. Nope, has been hammering away at them non-stop. They are really realistic looking and feeling eggs - so much so that I have already been fooled myself when collecting the (few) eggs

I have been rushing out at the first sound of either a cackling chook (or our rooster, who also celebrates very loudly when one of his girls lays an egg) or can hear hammering from the chook houses. Today I managed to save five chook eggs and one turkey egg and didn't find any evidence of broken eggs, but naughty chookie was in at every opportunity hammering away at the fake eggs. She's incredibly determined - I flush her out of the house but the minute I step away, she's straight back in, even if I spend 10 minutes chasing her out again and again.

I will try the nasty-surprise egg - but this won't be dangerous to the chook if she ingests it? Seems silly to ask when I'm considering culling her, but if culled it would be very quick and humane, I wouldn't want her to suffer by ingesting something that would kill her slowly/painfully. Also obviously don't want my other (well-behaved) chookies harmed.

The rollaway is the best idea of all, would truly cure it once and for all, no chance to get near the eggs. We have been talking about fitting some external nest boxes to the cubbies to make it easier for me to collect the eggs, so will buy some of the rollaway inserts to fit to the boxes. That seems like the easiest solution, but will have to wait until hubby is home from work in a couple of weeks to help build - in the meantime I'll try the yucky egg trick.

Don't think that an empty egg fill with chilli or hot mustard ot tabasco would harm the offending chookie.

Clutching at straws so that she doesn't end up in your soup pot, just some thoughts:

Do you think that she may have some sort of dietary deficiency hence her possibly eating those eggs???
Maybe she is is bored and it is attention seeking behaviour??? Where is she in the pecking order???
Can you isolate her and give her a "time out" area on her own away from the others and the nesting boxes and eggs???

Whilst you're waiting to get the roll-aways built, I'm sure the yucky egg treatment would be fine and not harm the chook. I am a newbie but know two old chook hands who swear by it - and neither of them would do anything cruel or painful to a chicken. It's unpleasant for the chicken - that's the point, it puts them off.

And also good advice above to consider their diet - do they have access to calcium eg shell grit? If not, the eggs may tempt her just to get more of that.

I don't think she's lacking anything dietary, they have a constant source of layer mash, egg grit and calcium in the food shed, which is open all day every day for them to help themselves. They also get kitchen scraps/peas/cat biscuits/mung bean sprouts/-sometimes- bread each afternoon.

It shouldn't be boredom, they have a large chookie yard of almost an acre in size, so although they don't free-range our entire property, they do have plenty of room to move about and forage. Like most chook yards there is not much grass, but I have just built a couple of forage boxes for them so that will give them more access to greens.

Yes, I can isolate her during the day if necessary and then put her back in with her flock for night-time (don't have a spare house at the moment), but would worry that this would estrange her from her flock?

Not sure where she is in the pecking order, she doesn't appear to be picked on at all and seems like a fairly confident chookie.

Actually I think the wooden eggs may be having some effect, yesterday I managed to collect five eggs and six today and only checked the houses twice, so I may get some more wooden eggs when I next go to the junk shop and also try the yucky egg trick.

Isolating the offending chookie should break her bad behavioural pattern.