Chicken Arks Can Help Stop Your Chickens Eating Eggs

Layers when they first begin laying may start to eat the eggs. You may be able to retrain them, but some chickens can be hard to cure.

When an egg has been dropped or trodden on, a chicken may eat it. They are curious foragers so can’t resist this new treat. They may eat the shell, or not. But once they’ve tasted an egg, it can be hard habit to break.

Things to stop egg eating starting.

Make sure your nest boxes in your chicken ark or hen house have a lip on the bottom of the front so it’s hard to kick eggs out accidentally. Chickens need sufficient space to move around in their nestboxes without damaging the eggs.

A good depth of bedding in the nestboxes will protect them.

Finally, an egg is easier to break if the shell is thin. Adequate oyster shell will help develop harder and thicker shells.

If the chickens can roam free so they have more interest, or you have a chicken ark you can move around, they will have more interest and are less likely to get bored.

Things you can do with chickens who have started to eat eggs

Collect often. The longer an egg sits, the more likely it will get eaten.
Your hens may all lay early, so you can collect eggs when they’ve finished. For a time, check throughout the day, if your chickens lay all day.

This may break the cycle and you can also keep them in a chicken ark.

Other solutions

You could try putting golf balls in the nesting boxes. This works as the chickens will be put off after pecking the hard ball.

Using wooden eggs in the same way is another method – they really look like eggs, so the theory is that they will really fool the chickens.

Petroleum jelly spread over an egg,which is then put back could be worth trying. When the hen pecks at it, she gets a beak full of goop.

Boredom can be as much a cause of egg pecking as it is of pecking other chickens. Letting them free range or putting them in a chicken ark can work

If you can work out if it’s one chicken who’s causing the problem before she teaches this bad habit to the others, separate her from the rest of the flock and their eggs.

This is where a chicken ark can be useful, so you can house her separately for a while. She will have interest from being moved around regularly, and if you collect the eggs frequently as well, you may break her of the habit.