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Author Topic: Pecked/eaten eggs  (Read 2947 times)

Daleswoman

  • Joined Jan 2015
Pecked/eaten eggs
« on: July 12, 2016, 09:52:43 pm »
We've been losing eggs lately, finding them chipped or totally eaten and just shavings wet with yolk in the nestboxes.  I isolated suspect hens one by one but no clear evidence. Today, my partner disturbed a pair of crows, they flew out of the hen's shed when he went to collect eggs this morning. Could it be the crows stealing / eating the eggs? Anyone else had experience of this?

harmony

  • Joined Feb 2012
Re: Pecked/eaten eggs
« Reply #1 on: July 12, 2016, 10:06:18 pm »
Yes, crows would do this. Now they have an easy meal they won't give up. You will have to lock your hens in until they have laid or dispatch the culprits.

HesterF

  • Joined Jul 2012
  • Kent
  • HesterF
Re: Pecked/eaten eggs
« Reply #2 on: July 12, 2016, 10:10:25 pm »
Oh absolutely. I've seen a crow fly off with an egg in it's mouth. In our case, they normally take the eggs out of the house which I know can't be done by a chicken (we do have a egg pecking chicken too). Very little you can do about it although I have found having a broody hen in the house helps - she gathers them under her and I collect them from her once a day. Beyond that we have tried everything to get rid of the crows - we have about 50 or 60 that fly down every morning after I put the food out. Even a man with a gun only keeps them off whilst he's actually there - which is about as effective as a real-life scarecrow. The minute they see him walk off, they're back down. I think ours will go once harvest happens because there's really not that much food up in the run now (I limit what I put out in the morning to what my birds can eat pretty rapidly and then feed them again last thing in the evening after the crows have gone to roost and just before they go into the sheds) so once there's corn in the fields, I hope they'll be off. Meantime, complete nightmare!

farmers wife

  • Joined Jul 2009
  • SE Wales
Re: Pecked/eaten eggs
« Reply #3 on: July 12, 2016, 11:48:26 pm »
Seen a lot of crows around this last week.  Im hoping they dont go in our eggmobile.  Any broken eggs are caused by the soft shell of one which makes a right mess in the boxes.

Bionic

  • Joined Dec 2010
  • Talley, Carmarthenshire
Re: Pecked/eaten eggs
« Reply #4 on: July 13, 2016, 07:18:46 am »
Crows would take the eggs but I think its more likely to be the chickens themselves. Mine went through weeks of easting each others eggs but suddenly seem to have more or less stopped.
Life is like a bowl of cherries, mostly yummy but some dodgy bits

Dave C

  • Joined Aug 2014
  • Teesdale, Co Durham
Re: Pecked/eaten eggs
« Reply #5 on: July 13, 2016, 09:46:57 am »
Crows & magpies are a pain in the ar$e, I shoot them but it's harder than you think.

Another trick is to hang a dead crow up in a tree or beside the coop, keeps the others away.

Looks a bit Blair whitch project though  :roflanim:

Womble

  • Joined Mar 2009
  • Stirlingshire, Central Scotland
Re: Pecked/eaten eggs
« Reply #6 on: July 13, 2016, 11:31:30 am »
Crows would take the eggs but I think its more likely to be the chickens themselves. Mine went through weeks of easting each others eggs but suddenly seem to have more or less stopped.

IME it's easy enough to tell if it's the hens - just put an egg on the ground and see if they start pecking at it.  Several of ours started egg eating a couple of months ago, and nothing I did seemed to discourage them. They also suddenly stopped, but I'm afraid not in a good way  :-\.
"All fungi are edible. Some fungi are only edible once." -Terry Pratchett

fsmnutter

  • Joined Oct 2012
  • Fettercairn, Aberdeenshire
Re: Pecked/eaten eggs
« Reply #7 on: July 13, 2016, 12:54:50 pm »
It's magpies with us, have caught several with a Larsen trap under control of the gamekeeper last year but numbers are back up again.
Corvids - crows and magpies - are exceptionally clever, so will easily learn how to get an easy meal!

Marches Farmer

  • Joined Dec 2012
  • Herefordshire
Re: Pecked/eaten eggs
« Reply #8 on: July 13, 2016, 03:28:44 pm »
The hens will also copy a corvid eating an egg, although crows usually fly off with them to eat them in peace elsewhere.  Best solution for corvids is trap or gun, best for chicken egg-eaters is culling.  Once corvids get the idea they'll always hang around and their young will copy them.

HesterF

  • Joined Jul 2012
  • Kent
  • HesterF
Re: Pecked/eaten eggs
« Reply #9 on: July 13, 2016, 11:21:30 pm »
Quote
Another trick is to hang a dead crow up in a tree or beside the coop, keeps the others away

Doesn't work -not even for a day here! Kept the school group I had visiting today amused though - lots of small boys marvelling over the dead crows rather than the live chickens, ducks & geese!

Stereo

  • Joined Aug 2012
Re: Pecked/eaten eggs
« Reply #10 on: July 14, 2016, 08:37:28 am »
I have a crow epidemic here and have given up trying to keep them out. I'm building rollaway nest boxes for all my pens which is the only real way to stop them and even then the rollaways need to be deep as they have long beaks! They are basically clearing me out at the moment. It's the young birds I think, had it this time last year as well. Very frustrating.

 

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