The Accidental Smallholder Forum

Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: kitchen cottage on June 03, 2012, 07:36:31 am

Title: Missing Eggs
Post by: kitchen cottage on June 03, 2012, 07:36:31 am

I've just got 8 hens (after a fox massacre over the summer),,, I checked the coop yesterday and there were 3 eggs.  Not bad cos the hens are unsettled and have only been here 3 days.... when I came back later.... no eggs.  Not a bit of a shell or anything.
I have a pet hen Emily and I left one of her eggs on my car bonnet for about 30 minutes a few weeks ago... and that disappeared.
Can you think of what can take an egg and leave no mark at all, no shell, no albumen, no yolk///?
I am baffled and I want to start baking sponges!
 

Title: Re: Missing Eggs
Post by: Bangbang on June 03, 2012, 08:14:08 am

I would think crows or rats.

Title: Re: Missing Eggs
Post by: jaykay on June 03, 2012, 08:46:48 am

Me too. Both pinch eggs round here.

Title: Re: Missing Eggs
Post by: tizaala on June 03, 2012, 09:11:14 am

Magpies, rats, or canibalistic chicken, + my Jack Russell

Title: Re: Missing Eggs
Post by: Sylvia on June 03, 2012, 09:14:08 am

Crows and magpies were taking mine. Cut strips of sacking and tack them, overlapping, against pop hole and nest box. Make sure you handle the sacking daily to put human scent on it.

Title: Re: Missing Eggs
Post by: chrismahon on June 03, 2012, 08:47:42 pm

Rooks as well. Jackdaw, Mink, Squirrels -loads will pick an egg up and take it. Not your chickens as there would be shell left. Put a pot egg down and watch Kitchen Cottage.

Title: Re: Missing Eggs
Post by: jaykay on June 03, 2012, 08:53:37 pm

 We should get egg-cams - it would be fascinating <biologist>  ;D

Title: Re: Missing Eggs
Post by: nettelein on June 03, 2012, 09:40:37 pm

 :wave: I watched a rook flying into the pen, hopping into the coop, then jumping out and flying off with a duck egg in it's beak..............a few times.....

Title: Re: Missing Eggs
Post by: kitchen cottage on June 05, 2012, 07:58:01 am

Thanks for your advice.... we have magpies and rooks hanging round the pen....so I'm assuming they are waiting for an omlette.... I'll try some of the hints on here  :)

Title: Re: Missing Eggs
Post by: kitchen cottage on June 05, 2012, 09:42:14 pm

This morning when I let the hens out.... they had yoke on them and there was a broken egg so they are eating the eggs.....

Title: Re: Missing Eggs
Post by: chrismahon on June 07, 2012, 09:57:08 pm

Not necessarily Kitchen Cottage. It could have been one dropped off the perch in the night. Have you got curtains on the nest boxes?

Title: Re: Missing Eggs
Post by: Sylvia on June 08, 2012, 07:35:10 am

I watched a crow fly down into my duck run look carefully at an egg that had been laid on the grass and thought he surely wouldn't be able to open his beak far enough to carry the egg. He tapped a hole in it with his beak and carried it that way. I do admire their intelligence but have now put netting over the run ;)