How to Keep Chickens From Eating Their Own Eggs

Chickens often eat their own eggs or the eggs of other hens. Eggs are nutritious and good-tasting, and domestic chickens have not been bred for their parental skills. In large commercial poultry operations, the eggs drop into a container out of the hen's reach for collection. If you don't have nesting boxes for your backyard flock, there are some other things to try.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Collect eggs promptly. Hens usually lay in the early morning, so make sure you have the eggs gathered by noon.

2. Darken your nesting boxes. Hang old towels or pieces of sheet in front of the nesting boxes to block the light. The hens will still get in the boxes to lay.

3. Avoid having the hens lay all over the yard. Keep them in their hen house until early afternoon when they are hopefully done laying.

4. Buy chicks who have had their beaks trimmed. Hens with fully sharp beaks are more likely to cannibalize their eggs.

5. Provide a low stress environment. Hens that are overcrowded or bored are more likely to eat eggs. Allow the hens free-range time in a safely enclosed chicken yard, and maintain a small flock.

6. Make sure your hens are getting adequate calcium and Vitamin D in their diet. Deficiencies of these nutrients make egg-eating attractive and make it easier by producing weak-shelled eggs that are easily cracked open.

7. Eliminate recalcitrant egg-eaters from the flock before they spread the habit or start on the others' eggs.

Tips & Warnings

• Old-fashioned remedies, such as offering eggs tainted with cayenne pepper, don't work on chickens. Prevent the problem before it starts, and keep delinquent hens out of the flock.