When we moved to Vermont, owning chickens seemed like such a romantic dream. I love animals. I want animals in my life. Chickens are such a great, easy animal to start with. The gateway animal they say.
And I admit, I fell into the vision of chickens wandering around my yard, maybe some baby chicks following them. Tossing grain out to them every morning. their little clucks singing the song of gratitude for my care.
I didn’t mind the annual clean up. I am happy to feed them. Okay, maybe feeding them in negative temperatures may send me in a bit of a whine but I still don’t mind. But what I didn’t realize was that chickens come with many behaviors that can be quite questionable. Like the fact that they wander everywhere if you let them. Into your neighbor’s yard. Into your flowers. Into the road, where they sit and literally stop traffic.
And something else they don’t tell you?
They eat their own eggs!
It started with cracked shells. We would go to gather eggs and would find remnants of uneaten shell in their laying box. Now, aside from the fact that it turns out chickens are likely murdering and consuming their unborn children (I’m not going to think too hard on that), our chickens have one job as homestead pets. And that is to give us eggs. And with all the money and time and care we have spent on them, I feel like they are getting the better end of the deal. Especially if they are consuming a portion of our eggs.
We were told the shells were likely cracking when the hen stood to lay them. Give them more calcium. Add oyster shells to their feed.
We did. No change and I think they ate around the oyster shells.
Then we started finding eggs with just one hole pecked in it outside of the laying box.
We were told, get them to lay eggs in the laying box. Add lots of bedding to make it comfy and soft.
We did. More egg shells in the box.
We were told to make a laying box that lets the egg roll into a compartment where the chickens can’t get to them.
We did. The chickens stopped using the box alltogether.
As time went on, we were seeing less and less eggs. If a chicken found a new spot to lay, we would get eggs until a cannibal chicken would discover the spot and start eating those as well.
This year, we were doing well with the new chickens. They found a spot that no one seemed to bother. We even had eggs all winter since they were in their first season and that often happens.
But then, March came and we do what we do every spring.
We clean out the coop..
This has never been a problem. In fact, I think the chickens kind of like it. Fresh bedding, poop all scraped off. The cleaning of a 5 star hotel room.
But this year was different.
As soon as we cleaned that coop, all eggs stopped. None. Not a one. No shells, no holes, no eggs whatsoever.
Did cleaning expose all the hiding spots and they were eating them all?
A couple days went by and we found one in the laying box. A couple more days, another one. But nothing a flock of 7 hens in the spring should be laying.
As we quickly were running through our egg rations, we realized that this was no longer a nuscience, this was an actual emergency!
That’s when I pulled out all the stops.
I started saving eggshells and crushing them in their feed. Extra calcium can’t be a bad thing, right?
I gave them scraps of all our vegetables. It can only make them healthier!
I put out food and hung them and staked them and made them as fun as could be because it’s supposed to make them less stressed to play with their food.
I go out and check for eggs several times a day to get to them before they are eaten.
And I did the one thing I was putting off. Now, I’m not exactly in the avenue of the bougie chicken. I don’t think for one second that a chandelier in the coop or chicken wallpaper and a lush front lawn for my chickens is going to do one thing or another to help them thrive. But I did find myself victim to the one chicken pleasure that I did feel might be helpful.
Curtains.
no, not to decorate their little chicken windows. But to cover their laying boxes.
The idea is to create a private place, not only to encourage them to snuggle away and lay their eggs, but also to hide any eggs from other chickens.
so I sat there and hemmed up little curtains for my birds. I constructed a little wooden “curtain rod” across the boxes so that they had someplace to staple to. And I hung my chickens curtains.
And this is when the magic happened.
Those chickens were so thankful, they began perching themselves in that curtained laying box immediately. Their little heads poking out of the curtains as they diligently gave their offerings to us. Eggs came in abundance. Basketfuls! And we all lived happily ever after…..
…okay, you are right. None of that happened.
Not once have a caught a hen in that box. Nor have I seen any sign of an egg. In fact, I haven’t even seen a hen TRYING to lay an egg. At this point I don’t even think they are laying.
I am out of options. They act healthy. Don’t seem stressed. at least half of them are still at prime laying age.
But it’s been 2 full weeks with no eggs.
And I’m about to do a full chicken restart!