Egg eating starts by accident: an egg cracks, a hen tastes it — and likes it. The others learn quickly from the first, and a month later you’re collecting a third fewer eggs though the hens lay as before. The habit is easier to prevent than to break, but it can be broken.
How to tell they’re eating eggs
- shells and yolk traces in the nests, fewer whole eggs than usual;
- dried yolk on some hens’ beaks and head feathers;
- collection falls when the laying rate shouldn’t have.
If collection fell but there are no traces, the cause is probably something else: why hens stopped laying.
Why it starts
| Cause | What to do |
|---|---|
| Thin shells, eggs break on their own | Check calcium and vitamin D (on shells) |
| Too few nests, crowding | One nest per 4–5 hens |
| Bright nests | Shade with a curtain or move to a dark corner |
| Infrequent collection | Collect 2–3 times a day |
| Too little nest material | A thick layer of shavings or straw |
| Lack of protein, boredom | Complete feed, something for hens to do |
How to break the habit
- Find the culprit. Often one or two hens with yolk on their beaks. Put them in a separate pen for 1–2 weeks.
- Collect eggs at once. In the morning and early afternoon, while most of the flock is laying, check nests every hour or two.
- Use dummy eggs. Wooden, ceramic or plastic eggs in the nests. A hen pecks, gets nothing, and loses interest.
- Remove broken eggs immediately together with the soiled nest material.
- Install roll-away nests. The egg rolls down a sloped floor behind a partition the hen can’t reach. The most reliable fix when the problem persists.
About the “mustard egg”
The old advice is to blow out an egg and fill it with mustard or hot pepper. Sometimes it helps, but it’s unreliable and doesn’t fix the cause. Unless you sort out shells, nests and collection, the habit comes back.
If nothing works
A hen that eats eggs for months and teaches others costs you money. In that case she’s culled. Unpleasant, but sensible on a farm that counts eggs.
How much you’re losing
Compare collection in EggPulse with the usual laying rate for the flock’s age. If the rate has dropped while the hens look healthy and are laying, the gap is roughly what’s being eaten in the nests. Broken eggs at collection can be logged separately too.
