Chickens peck eggs: the reason and what to do, how to solve the problem with drugs and folk remedies

There are many reasons why chickens peck eggs, so you need to figure out the problem in time and decide what to do. A number of tips and tricks will help determine the cause of the problem. Then they begin to eliminate it: adjust the diet, make adjustments to the conditions of detention. Preventive measures will help prevent the problem from recurring.

Why do chickens peck their eggs

The only way to deal with a problem quickly is to identify the root cause.

Improper feeding

The most important factor is the wrong or unbalanced diet:

• Lack of vitamins, particularly calcium, causes chickens to eat their eggs. Another sign of calcium deficiency is that their shells become thin and brittle.
• Poor-quality or spoiled food, lack of greens, feeding forbidden foods also cause a problem.
• Changes in diet.
• Presence of shell residues with protein and yolk in food. It is permissible to give the shell to chickens, but only as part of the mash. It is pre-washed, dried and ground.

Bouts of aggression

Some laying hens peck eggs not because of the lack of any vitamins in the body, but because of the harmfulness. Such chickens often deliberately crush eggs, attack other chickens, being intolerant of the neighborhood with other individuals.Aggression is exacerbated by a lack of food and non-compliance with the conditions of detention.

External factors

Chicken behavior can be influenced by external factors:

• violation of the light or temperature regime leads to the fact that birds crack eggs and drink the contents;
• the presence of pests in the chicken coop, such as mites, pereedy;
• in winter, lack of bird walking is a common reason;
• chickens eat eggs in nests due to crowded indoors.

How to find out what is the reason?

Advice from experienced poultry farmers will help you figure out the problem. Routine observation of poultry behavior will help.

The laying hen, which is engaged in sabotage, is often in the hen house, sitting near the nests, waiting for a fresh batch. As soon as the chicken is calculated, it is placed in another place for two weeks. At the same time, they try one of the effective methods of weaning from pecking eggs.

How to stop chickens from pecking eggs?

Sometimes it is enough to make adjustments to the diet, and the problem goes away. But in some cases, you have to fight in other ways.

Proper nutrition

Additional ingredients should be included in the chicken diet:

• daily menu should include foods such as fishmeal, low-fat cottage cheese, milk;
• once a week it is good to give the offal of a slaughtered animal;
• every day you need to add a little s alt, nettle, crushed shell rock to poultry food;
• legumes, alfalfa are useful in small quantities;
• compensate for the lack of vitamins mash based on grated boiled vegetables;
• It is useful to give a few grams of beef, lamb or pork fat.

In the warm season, the bird should eat a lot of fresh greens.

Pharmacy preparations

In some advanced cases, you have to resort to medication. Treatment is carried out with such means as "Ryabushka", "Laying hen", "Vitaminol", "Biovetin", "Methionine".

Folk methods

It is sometimes possible to solve the problem in folk ways:

• lining in the nest of a dummy round shape made of wood, stone or s alt dough;
• lining in tennis ball nests helps.

If folk remedies don't help, drugs or more drastic measures come to the rescue.

Improving detention conditions

You should also check the conditions of keeping that are organized for poultry:

• There should be no debris, straw or other items in the nest. On a flat surface, it is more difficult to catch an egg that will constantly roll.
• Nests should be located at the level of human growth, setting the approach to them in the form of stairs.
• Layer nests should not be close together.
• You can build nests in such a way that the egg rolls neatly into a separate compartment.

Lighting Rules

The room should have white, subdued lighting. The nests themselves should be in the most shaded corners of the chicken coop.

Chickens will not be able to see the eggs in the dark and pecking will stop.

In winter, it is recommended to organize a backlight with an ultraviolet lamp. It will make up for the lack of vitamin D. You can not leave too bright light in the chicken coop. This helps to increase the aggressiveness of birds.

You need to take care of the length of daylight hours. To this end, they make windows in the room and install additional lamps in the winter.

Walking and enclosure sizes

Stress in birds causes rare exposure to the street and insufficient space for walking.

It is genetically inherent that chickens must get their own food on their own. Therefore, they can often be caught eating grass, small insects or pebbles. If the area for walking is small, then the chickens do not have such an opportunity. Gradually the hens become irritable and peck at their eggs.

In order for the chicken to run enough, and she was not interested in pecking her eggs, you need to organize a large aviary. For 4 birds, on average, there should be 1 square. m. The more space, the better.

Make a fake egg

Sometimes the device in the form of a rounded model helps. A small hole is made in a real egg and the contents are drawn out with a syringe. Then a solution with vinegar or pepper is poured inside and the hole is sealed with plasticine. The finished copy is placed in the nest.

Debeaking birds

Some breeds of chickens are aggressive, so beak beaking is the only way out. The procedure consists in cutting off a part of the bird's beak with special tools.

Prevention of pecking eggs

Preventive measures to help prevent biting eggs:

• provide a complete diet according to the season;
• enrich the menu with products rich in vitamin and mineral complex;
• chicken coop should be kept clean and dry;
• the room should have a certain air temperature, good lighting and ventilation;
• spacious walking should be organized;
• need to collect eggs regularly;
• vegetables are left indoors so that the chickens have something to peck at.

To deal with the problem in the case of the right method is easy. But it is better to prevent the problem by creating all the necessary conditions.

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