How to stop chicken from laying eggs and drinking it
Well this is part of management issues that has to do with laying birds or should I say laying chicken
Birds are genius in their own way, and they tend to do things the best way they can. It is now up to you to see things the way they see it..
To solve this issue of birds laying eggs and drinking it, we have to look at some factors which may be responsible .
Those factors are listed below and we would explain them
Beak:
Some people argue that it’s not possible to Debeak birds already laying eggs. But I tell you. You need to cut the beak of your chicken once in 4 months. This will prevent them from injuring themselves and reduce cannibalism in chicken, also debarking laying chicken will make the beak blunt, the beak will not be too sharp to break an egg. If your chicken beak is sharp they would be breaking eggs. Hence reason for debeaking
Feed: How often do you feed your chicken? Some people only want the eggs but don’t feed the chicken at the right time. Once your chicken are hungry, they would break the egg and satisfy their hunger. This would lead to loss, loss to the farmer. To avoid this, please always make sure that you feed your laying chicken the right needed grams of food for the day.
Don’t over feed them too. That would also be loss on your side too.
Preferably feed them early in the morning around 7am, 11 am, and around 3pm. This is the method I use to feed my chicken.
You can decide your own way of feeding chicken, the above is an illustration.
Nutrient: If your feed is lacking nutrient, your chicken would see them not worthy, so they would break the eggs. For example if the salt is too much or too low, the chicken would break the egg, they would start fighting each other. There are other nutrients too which may lead to breaking of eggs.
While formulating feed for your chicken, consider the appropriate micro nutrient level in your feed. Make sure they are in right proportions.
Egg collection: How often do you collect eggs? Of course you must have egg picking routing, you can’t just leave the eggs on touched in the tray like that, the chicken might be tempted to drink it or step on it. If you are a farmer that love to pick you eggs at a long interval, you will be loosing money because the chicken would break half of the egg that you are supposed to pick. Poultry business is not for lazy farmers. Pick eggs hourly or 2 hours interval.
Management: Some cage are not good, instead of the egg to roll down the tray outside, the egg would remain in the cage with the chicken. This type of cage need to be replaced or repaired.
If you are rearing your laying chicken in a free range or in a house you need to be there regularly to pick eggs. Chicken in the cage have less tendency of breaking eggs.
Practice the above and eggs will be saved.