Ca++
Separate the cannibal. Freezer that one. Hope the others settle down. Can you remove the other nesting boxes so they can only use the slanted one? Or make more slanted ones so that’s their only choice? I wish you luck. Sounds like dogs and eating shit. Once you have 1 that eats it, the others pick up that crappy habit..

Show them the movie Chicken Run and tell them you’ve changed your name to Tweedy. They’ll fall in line in no time.

I have 19 chickens right now and once they start eating their own eggs it is a hard habit for them to kick. If you can catch the one doing the eating separate her in some type of pen. I have a large dog kennel covered in chicken wire I use for baby chickens and egg eaters. I put them in the pen and leave a light on them 24/7 for a few days, that seems to work for my flock. I do the same thing for hens that like to just lay on the nests.

We put dummy eggs in the coop. They are made of wood. The chickens learn they don't like them and stop pecking them. We also started checking for real eggs more often. We had 8 hens and used five or six dummy eggs that we moved around every day. The egg pecker stopped.

I sense a marketing opportunity here: Fake egg with dye bomb

quote:

Originally posted by darthfuster:
We put dummy eggs in the coop. They are made of wood. The chickens learn they don't like them and stop pecking them. We also started checking for real eggs more often. We had 8 hens and used five or six dummy eggs that we moved around every day. The egg pecker stopped.

egg pecker

I found a new phrase ... thanks.

quote:

Originally posted by xanth:

Have to nip it early.

You know, today McDonald's announced a Sept 16 introduction of Spicy McNuggets.

Just saying...

I have a co-worker who has chickens. He confirms this behavior, and says he attacks it from the prevention end, by being sure their feed contains enough calcium. One way is feeding their own eggshells back to them. Apparently laying eggs depletes them of it. This doesn't sound much different from us having occasional food cravings. (Pregnant women get these a lot.) They are to replace a nutrient the body is lacking even if you aren't consciously aware of it.

Oyster shell supplement, give their shells back to them but make sure you step on the shells so they don’t learn that egg shapes are food, collect eggs asap, and kill any repeat offenders for soup.

quote:

Oyster shell supplement

That was mentioned too.

I bought some oyster shells today for them, but I'm afraid my ladies went on strike and are refusing to lay eggs now. I think they're mad that I took away all their nesting boxes except for the new slanting one, which they don't seem to like. I guess we'll see who wins this battle of wills