Chickens peck eggs: what are the reasons and what to do?

Sometimes poultry farmers notice with horror that the eggs in the hen house are broken or eaten. This situation is especially surprising, if there is no one there except chickens, no one went there. Usually this happens in winter, when birds can not walk a lot on the street and peck at the ground to get vitamins. Getting rid of the problem is easy if you correctly determine the cause of its occurrence.

Causes

Some inexperienced poultry farmers believe that chickens peck at their eggs because they are tasty. After the bird has tasted such food once, it cannot stop, and sets a bad example for other hens. The owners believe that the scoundrel should just be put on the meat. This version has the right to exist. True, the reasons for this behavior usually lie elsewhere.

• Lack of calcium in the body. If the chicken eats only the shell, and the contents are not interesting to her, this is the reason. Another symptom is a thin and soft eggshell.
• Lack of protein. Usually eating eggs occurs in winter. In warm weather, there is no shortage because the chicken can safely eat worms and other insects from the ground. Vegetable food does not have the right amount of protein, and the bird tries to compensate for this by eating the contents of the egg. The shell itself does not interest her.
• Vitamin D deficiency. For this reason, chickens eat eggs in winter when they lack sunlight. Of the characteristic symptoms, it is important to note the soft and thinned shells on the eggs, the penguin posture of the bird, the softness of the claws and beak, and swollen joints. With such a deficit, chickens begin to walk strangely, as if limping.
• The bird has little room in the nest. With improper arrangement or too bright lighting, birds may become stressed or trample eggs. In this case, they are able to accidentally break, and then the chicken happily pecks the shell and eats the contents. Another option is that there are too few nests or they are not located correctly. In this situation, while waiting for its turn, the chicken may not stand it and fall straight to the floor. Eggs crack as a result of the constant movement of birds.
• A young inexperienced laying hen. The first litter can be confusing for the hen. She flips and pecks at the eggs out of ignorance. If there are adult layers nearby, then the young ones will simply copy their actions and nothing bad will happen.
• Low-activity lifestyle. If the chicken cannot warm up and peck the soil, then she begins to peck eggs. Usually this kind of problem occurs during cold weather. Severe frosts and lack of grass harm laying hens.

How to solve the problem?

After determining the exact cause of pecking, you need to deal with the problem in the right way. The first thing to do is to move the chicken to an isolated place for quarantine. Such measures are needed so that other birds do not start to follow the example. You can return an individual to a common chicken coop only if you managed to wean it from pecking eggs. If the habit remains even after the correction of the diet and other measures, then it is better to put the chicken on the meat.

It happens that a bird destroys eggs due to a banal lack of nutrients. The shell contains a lot of vitamin D and calcium, which may not be enough in the feed. Add chalk, shell rock, marble dust to the bird’s food.

One of these components is enough.

It is worth increasing the amount of protein in the diet. A chicken needs 18-19 grams of plant and animal protein per day. You can calculate the disadvantage and add the necessary products. Vegetable protein sources and doses for chickens:

• you can give 10 g of fish;
• meat and bone or meat meal at the rate of 8-9 g per bird;
• insects, worms and maggots, which are considered natural food for chickens.
• milk and dairy products – instead of ordinary water.

Chicken receives vegetable proteins from leaves of white cabbage, green legumes, cake. Grain mixtures are enriched with methionine at the rate of 2 g per 10 kg of feed.

Animal fats (lamb, pork, beef) and fish oils high in vitamin D should be added with caution. Check with your veterinarian to avoid causing hypervitaminosis.

In some cases, when diet correction does not help, chickens are prescribed special vitamin complexes.

In winter, when the cold sets in, it is worth transferring all chickens to boiled potatoes with grated root crops. In the morning, give the birds wet food, and in the evening dry or compound feed. Diet is also of great importance. Active laying hens are fed 2 times a day with compound feed or grain. Mixers need to feed chickens more often, at least 3-4 times a day.

In the summer, birds have the opportunity to get all the useful vitamins and minerals from nature itself. Be sure to walk the hens on a pasture with grass. Exposure to sunlight ensures the production of the right amount of vitamin D. Active walks will be a good prevention of obesity.

Pecking may be the result of improper conditions for keeping birds. Check the lighting in the coop. If the light is too bright, then the birds begin to behave inappropriately and restlessly, to show cannibalism. Choose fluorescent lamps, one 6 W lamp is enough for 2 m60. Place the lighting at a height of 2 meters from the floor.

The light regime must be observed very strictly, adjusting it depending on the season.

Any violations or interruptions will negatively affect the behavior of all birds. Biological processes in the body slow down in winter. It is necessary to extend the daylight hours to 12 hours with the help of artificial lighting in order to correct this effect. This should be done from mid-November, immediately after molting.

The length of daylight hours for laying hens should reach 14 hours. It is important to observe the intensity of the light flux within 10-20 lm. The dark time of the day is also very important for chickens. It is during this period that calcium metabolism occurs, bone tissue is renewed and the function of the immune system is restored. Remember that you can’t light the chicken coop around the clock, otherwise the birds will not only peck eggs, but also die.

If there is not enough space for laying hens in the nest, you need to either expand the chicken coop or transplant part of the herd to another room. According to the norms, no more than 1-2 birds can be located per 4 m5. The workload of the perches themselves directly depends on the purpose of the chickens. For eggs, you need to allocate about 18-19 cm per individual. Chickens for meat need 20-25 cm.

Do not sprinkle chicken feed directly on the floor of the chicken coop. Such reckless action leads to malnutrition, and becomes the cause of the same pecking of eggs. Feeders and drinkers must be of the correct size. The length must be calculated based on the age of the chickens:

In the courtyard, it is necessary to equip a platform, which should be at least 2 times larger than the chicken coop. A canopy should be placed over the corral to protect the birds from the rain. It will be possible to release chickens for a walk even in winter, because thanks to the roof the ground will not be covered with snow. The places in the nests themselves are also of great importance for chickens. The bird should be comfortable and soft, otherwise, due to stress, it will begin to spoil the eggs. Minimize the chance that the egg will fall and break.

A dark, dry and warm place for laying eggs should be located as far as possible from the exit from the coop. You can make a nest both from a wooden box and from wicker baskets measuring at least 30x30x35 cm. Use sawdust, hay, straw, shavings as a filler. In one nest, with the required size, 2 laying hens can be located. You can also prevent pecking with the help of an egg collector.

Folk remedies

There are several folk remedies in order to solve the problem of pecking eggs. It is believed that if a laying hen destroyed one egg, then she will definitely repeat it. If improvements in housing conditions and nutritional correction were not enough, then more unusual methods of weaning can be tried.

Fake eggs in the nest can be crafted from wood. Alternatively, small light white balls are used. If you are afraid for the health of the chicken, then you can make dummies from salt dough. This method will help get rid of the habit of pecking eggs.

Another tricky method is to replace the contents of the egg. Remove the protein with the yolk with a syringe, and put something inside that the chicken will not like to taste. You can use a mixture of hot spices or liquid soap. The chicken after pecking will feel a disgusting taste and the next time it simply does not want to repeat the attempt to eat.

If you need to establish which kritz spoils the eggs, then add a little food coloring to the filling. By coloring the beak, you can easily find the culprit. Farmers consider this method quite cruel and use it as a last resort. To begin with, it is worth eliminating all organic and physical reasons for eating. If the laying hen is healthy and pecks eggs only because of habit, then this method will solve the problem in just 3 days.

If it became clear that the chickens are pecking at the eggs due to the fact that they have a very tasty filling inside, then you need to switch your attention. Fresh minced meat and bone in the feeders should please them more. Draw the attention of laying hens to a treat so that they lose their desire to eat eggs. The method is directly opposite to the previous one, but also very effective.

Another cardinal way to protect eggs from pecking is debeaking. The procedure involves a slight trimming of the beak, as a result of which it ceases to be so sharp. Birds are not hurt, and the cause of increased anxiety is a simple fear of unknown manipulation. It is necessary to act with the utmost care so as not to injure the bird.

Preventive measures

Methods for dealing with pecking eggs are quite simple and effective. However, it is much easier to prevent such an incident than to deal with it. Simple preventive measures should be taken into account in advance so as not to think about troubles in the future. Let’s take a look at some effective prevention tips.

• Think carefully about the diet for each season so that the birds receive all the necessary nutrients.
• Add vitamins, trace elements and other nutritional supplements to the diet of laying hens, but only after consulting a specialist.
• Keep your coop and nest boxes clean, tidy, and dry.
• Think in advance of high-quality lighting and ventilation in the room where the chickens live.
• Do not allow changes in temperature, cold snap.
• Arrange a comfortable place for walking in advance.
• Collect eggs regularly or install a special device for this.
• Make the chicken coop inaccessible to other animals to prevent stressful situations.
• Hang fresh cabbages, rosettes with herbs and other vegetables in the chicken coop. This is both entertainment and a treat for chickens.

helpful hints

Many farmers are faced with the fact that chickens begin to peck eggs. It is impossible to predict all events, so sometimes even preventive measures may not protect against it. However, there are some proven tips.

• Chickens can eat not only their own eggs, which is why it is so important to identify the scoundrel. You can use both the observation method and the replacement of the contents of the eggs with a liquid with paint. If you do not pay attention to these problems in time, then other chickens can learn a bad habit. Then you will have to take drastic measures in relation to all laying hens.
• Try hanging curtains near each nest.. If you darken the place of oviposition, then the “nest robber” will not notice the eggs in vain, which means it will not spoil them.
• Immediately after the appearance of a pecking problem, all important causes should be ruled out. These include the wrong diet, poor living conditions. If there are no organic reasons, then it is worth analyzing recent events. Chickens peck eggs if they have experienced severe stress, fear.
• Chickens may have long forgotten why they pecked eggs, but they will continue to do so. Egg dummies are needed in this case. As a result of an attempt to peck at a wooden egg, the laying hen’s beak will ache, and then the head. She will realize that her actions lead to discomfort, and stop.
• Try all possible solutions, and if all else fails, send the bird to the meat. It happens that the behavior of a chicken simply cannot be corrected because the habit is too strong. The reason for pecking can also be certain “problems in the head” that cannot be changed.