Seriously, didn't we just do this?!
For the past couple of weeks we haven't gotten any eggs. I figured it was a combination of entering into the darkest time of the year (less than 12 hours of light), all the chickens molting (I could stuff at least one full duvet with all the feathers in the run) and that we added three new chickens. I don't really know if adding "strangers" to the coop would make all the chickens stop laying for a while, but it seems reasonable.
Last night, Jordan and I were at my dad's birthday party and Jeremy had to work late, so no one got home until after dark. Jeremy went down to check on all the animals and the chickens were already in the coop settling down. He opened the back doors to look for eggs and saw one of the chickens standing over a half-eaten egg. Great!
The problem is that we don't know if she was the culprit or if it was someone else and she just happened to be in the nest box when Jeremy opened it. I would hate to choose the wrong hen to meet it's fate. Now we have to watch, watch and watch to find the right hen to exact punishment on.
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3 comments:
I wouldn't advise killing a chicken just because she ate a few eggs. There are ways to stop and prevent this habit:
-gather eggs often
-slosh a half eaten egg with tabasco sauce
Or, sometimes this habit can be traced to a nutrition deficiency. Make sure your chickens are properly fed.
Hope this helps!
Hannah
Thanks for the ideas! I particularly like putting tabasco sauce on the half-eaten eggs. That'd teach her! We'll give that a try and let you know how it goes.
Update - No eating of eggs for the past week. Tabasco is a great idea.
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