Egg on your face, you big disgrace

Yesterday we had a record breaking nine eggs, for a total of 625 g (22 oz).  This is equivalent to about a dozen medium eggs.  We're hoping to average at least 3 eggs a day to break even with local organic/ free range egg prices, which should be quite doable with 12 hens (knock on wood! knock on wood!).  For the last week, we're averaging slightly better than 4.5 eggs per day.

One day's harvest

However, in farming, it seems even moderate success must come tempered with misfortune.  I've been letting the hens spend slightly more time unsupervised lately (we really need to build a run).  Yesterday afternoon  I was messing around inside the coop and heard an alarm call.  I ran out to find two chickens almost all the way across the yard staring down a cat.  Both chickens were easily bigger than the cat, but I'm sure he still could have done some damage.  I ran towards the group and the cat ran away while the chickens stood their ground.  Then I played the part of the alarm chicken and spread my arms straight out to my sides.  The flock took it as a signal to beeline back to the coop.

That was (near) misfortune #1.  This morning I let the chickens out a little earlier than usual and there weren't any eggs yet.  As I stood outside watching the chickens forage, I heard squawking inside the coop.  At first I thought it was just the sound of a chicken laying, but then the Barred Rock began running in and out and most of the other chickens began to do the same.  I followed them around, and at first couldn't find anything.  Then, I heard tapping coming from inside one of the nesting boxes, and there was Turken, eating an egg.

I chased her away and found two eggs in that nesting box- a dark brown one with a hole pecked into it, a light brown one still intact.  Agh.  I picked up the shell and covered the mess with straw.  As I was cleaning up, another chicken finished laying, so I grabbed that egg as well and took them inside.  Everything went back to normal, except the Barred Rock and Araucana continued to seem upset.

Twenty minutes later I decided to go back and check on the coop.  I opened the door and everyone rushed out but one Silky.  I peeked in a cardboard box, and there she was, pecking at a small pink egg. Agh again.  I tossed the whole box outside and observed.  The Silky and the Araucana were very upset.  They spent a bunch of time scraping around in the straw where the box had been, making sad noises.  Eventually the Silky gave up on her lost egg and only the Araucana remained to mourn (the loss of the egg? the box? the futility of life in general?...I really don't know what this bird's problem is).  And then, as I watched the Araucana crying, I heard an alarm outside and the cat was back, just behind the neighbors fence next to the coop.  Everyone back inside.

Turken was behind the bike wheels making a nest, so I grabbed a book and a cinder block, and made myself comfortable inside the coop.  The egg laying process, from the start of nesting, usually only takes 10-15 minutes.  In the meantime, I had some time to read and observe.  I tried to educate the chickens a bit about Bertrand Russell, but their interest waned when they realized I wasn't going to feed them parts of the book.  Cretins. 

  Logicomix: Easy reading while you're waiting for the chickens to do...something.  Chickens don't appreciate.

I watched as the chickens got used to my presence and went about whatever it is they do when they're locked up in the coop with noone around.  Most of them sat down on the straw and went to sleep.  A Golden Comet pulled a feather out of the Barred Rock and ate it directly.  A few pecked at the feed pellets without much interest.  Another Golden Comet wandered around checking out the nesting boxes.

The Comet made a bit of noise behind a cardboard box and I went to investigate.  A cold blue egg.  The Araucana, our only blue egg layer, wasn't anywhere in the vicinity, so it had been there awhile unharmed.  At the same moment, I noticed the Turken had an egg under her, so I shooed her away and picked up the warm, just laid egg.  I added some more sunflower seeds to the feeder and came inside.  So six eggs laid for the day...two destroyed, four to add to our collection.



Crushed egg shells

Why the sudden egg eating? Are they stressed from the cat? Too little protein? One broke accidentally and set off a chain?  We put crushed egg shell into their feed as a calcium supplement last night...did they recognize the material and want more?

As far as breaking the habit BackyardChickens.com suggests:
- Fill an empty egg shell with something distasteful or trick them into pecking at a golf ball...something to try if this goes on.  Not sure the golf ball will work, since we don't have white egg layers, and our birds just seem smarter than that.

-Make the nesting area dark...not really possible, and probably not effective, since one of the egg eaters was in a deep dark cardboard box.

-Take away their bedding so the egg rolls away if they peck at it...I doubt this would work unless the egg were to roll into a totally protected area, like in commercial nest boxes.  Elsewhere, the same website recommends increasing bedding.

- Special chicken blinders...seems like overkill

- More protein....check

- More calcium to make the eggs strong....our eggshells are actually a bit lumpy, suggesting that they already have a lot of calcium...

- Don't let them go hungry...they have plenty of feed

- Hang some sort of vegetable from a rope to entertain them so they're not bored...we had this before, but they ate it all.  Will have to replace.

-Remove the eggs as they're laid... this seems like the best solution I've seen, and the one with the most testimonials claiming that it works.  More frequent visits to the coop it is then! 

I've also seen elsewhere tips on how the make the nesting box smaller, so that the chicken can't stand up inside and peck at the egg.  I may try this as well, but so far their preferences for where to nest are pretty random, and we'd have to eliminate pretty much every other object from the shed...which might increase boredom.  And woe to the Araucana, who was thrown into a frenzy by the loss of just one box.

Update
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http://farmgirl-unleashed.com/2015/02/farmgirl-friday-blog-hop-187-2/