Preventing chickens from pecking their eggs

[Angela MacLeod]

Hi Chicken friends.

Our 4 hens are approaching maturity. They haven't started laying eggs yet but I think it will be soon. Having lived around other people's flocks of chickens I have observed that when the chickens get a taste of their eggs and figure out that they can crack them open, it is difficult or impossible to stop that behavior. So I'd like to hear what the wisdom is about this issue. How do you prevent it from even starting? I have heard that if you feed your chickens recycled egg shell that you should thoroughly clean them and break them up. Other than that what do you know?

Thanks

[Janaki Kilgore]

Hi Angela,
My current flock lives under spruce and pine trees, and I notice they are prone to thin eggshells. I think the acidity of the soil might be a factor. I have also heard that citrus peels should not be fed to chickens because it will make their eggshells thin.To replenish their calcium I wash, dry and crush the eggshells for them, and also offer oyster shells daily. In my experience, they only eat the eggs when the shells are weak and break, or if they are starved from underfeeding.
Good luck,
Janaki

[Jamie Jedinak]

 

Hi A,

Did you get some input on this issue?  I was told to collect daily, that helps and then if one is broken get it out soon. 

I feed my ladies oyster shell for calcium and not their egg shells, those I collect are crushed to powder in winter and put in worm bin and garden in the spring...I don't even risk it to give them to the birds....

 

Hope this helps!    :) Jamie

[Angela MacLeod]

Yes thanks for asking. I always collect eggs daily. I make sure they have access to oyster shells when ever they want. I haven't given them their egg shells to consume, though I like the idea of recycling them. I don't trust that I could get them clean enough and broken down enough to be sure that the ladies would put two and two together.....Thier egg shells seem plenty hard/thick so breakage is rare. But when one got accidentally broken a few weeks ago they ate most of it. That gave me worries. But since then they haven't intentionally broken any eggs.

I might try the idea of putting eggshells into the worm bin.

 

Thanks