# Egg Eating Dog



## Missy M (Mar 2, 2007)

Has anyone ever had a dog that would steal eggs? I found one of the eggs I marked and placed under a hen in the yard today. Well acutually the neighbors dog found it, but I think she took it from the nest yesterday. I've only gotten 1 egg from my chickens the past two days. With the extra light I've been getting 3-4. Is it possible she took this egg from the house? The door is big enough and she's a lab so she could reach the nest no problem. None of the chickens were harmed - the hen was just really mad. I need to reduce my door size. I have full size chickens, so how small can I make it?


----------



## Otter (Jan 15, 2008)

Oh, sure, it's easy to teach a dog to steal eggs. Just take some extra eggs and smash them on the ground (or drop them in the kitchen a few times) and Rover will quickly learn to smash them himself. :grumble:

You could try injecting one with Bitter Apple - I've found that to be far, far more effective then tabasco. Just mark it so you don't get it. And maybe smear a little yolk onto the shell to make it irresistible.
I'm not sure just how small you can make the door, but the hens have no trouble getting into the nestboxes, so I'd go with the opening-of-the-nestbox size and then try going down from there if I had too.
Good luck!


----------



## Missy M (Mar 2, 2007)

The funny/worst part about it is the dogs not even mine. I was so glad she would hang around to discourge predators - now she's being a turd. Go figure.


----------



## rabbitpatch (Jan 14, 2008)

It truly depends on the dog. We feed one of my dogs raw due to her grain allergies and she gets raw eggs as part of her diet. She will not touch the whole eggs though. Despite being feed raw chicken on a daily basis, she is completely uninterested in the live birds.

Another of my dogs is uninterested in any of my chickens or rabbits as long as they are in their cages where they belong. If one escapes however, he will stand on it and pluck it to death. Doesn't eat them and I don't even think he is trying to kill them, but he must love the squawking sound they make when he yanks out a mouth full of feathers.

My male beagle however WILL kill and eat chickens, and would eat the eggs if he could get to them. He won't tear into the pens or try to dig under, but if one gets loose he will eat it. I do keep him confined when he is unsupervised though, so he isn't a menace. I just have to be POSITIVE that he is where he belongs, and so are all the chickens.


----------



## MO_cows (Aug 14, 2010)

Our hens free range so they often make nests here and there. One of our dogs has several times brought an egg to us, unbroken, in her mouth. I suspect she eats some, too, but since she has helped us find the "unauthorized nests" so many times I won't hold it against her.


----------



## VA Susan (Mar 2, 2010)

Our dog ate some eggs of a broody whose nest was in a barrel while she got off her nest for a break. They were a few days from hatching. My husband heard the broody squawking and went to see what was wrong. The dog left three eggs that the broody successfully hatched. Now she has a small house she can go into with a chicken door too small for the dog to enter and a pen around it. I'm sure she would eat any eggs she finds in the woods or in odd places. We have to be extra careful that the dog can't get where any nests are.


----------



## Cyngbaeld (May 20, 2004)

Can you make a small door higher on the side of the coop? Give the birds something to fly up to so they can get in easier. It may take a bit of training for the birds. It is pretty easy for a large dog to get down and crawl thru rather a small opening.


----------



## MissyMoo (Jan 29, 2009)

I think this is a bit cruel, but my grandmother always tells me stories and she told me one regarding an egg-eating dog. her father, found that their farm dog was eating eggs.....that dog snatched the eggs every chance he got. her father tried ways to stop him, but this is the one that worked.... he filled an egg with Cayenne pepper and the dog went to do his usual nest raid and got a mouthful of pepper and he NEVER stole another egg. He was ok, and he was cured.


----------



## Otter (Jan 15, 2008)

LOL, Missy M, the dog stealing eggs here is ALSO the neighbors dog. I have young pullets who think they are feral and lay any-old-where.
So they are going to spend a couple of weeks locked tight in the coop and I'm going to bait a couple of eggs with Bitter Apple. 
Like MissyMoo said, except with the Bitter Apple instead of pepper. I once had a dog who enjoyed pepper...


----------



## Cyngbaeld (May 20, 2004)

I had one that would pull peppers off the plants to eat.
Usually a dog will smell the pepper and go for another egg instead.


----------



## chickenista (Mar 24, 2007)

You actually have 2 problems.. the egg eating dog and a door into your coop big enough for any predator to walk into.
You can either cut a small hole in your big door or cut a hole in the wall.
To make a chicken door, cut the hole and then make a 'slide' opening. Take strips of wood and make slots for a thin sheet of wood or tin to slide in. You can either pull the sheet of wood up and out or side to side to open and close it.
Having the smaller door also keeps the coop warmer in the winter.
And there are some dogs that will not be broken of the habit. "Bash", oh how I loved Bash, but he had no sense whatsoever. And he was an egg eater extraordinaire.
Our chicken door was a whole in the floor of a coop (built against the side of a mountain) the birds could jump down and there was a 'ladder' for them to go back up. I have no idea how Bash managed to get chin high on me into the coop, but he was gobbling 30+ eggs a day. His coat gleamed. 
I would call him and his big ol stupid head would pop down out of the coop with a happy, goofy grin. NO matter the beating or tricking or anything was gonna stop him..
He has a good home now.


----------



## Karen in Alabam (Jul 21, 2010)

One of our dogs would steal eggs too. I would see him licking it like a tootsie pop till he wore a hole in it. He has eaten my wooden eggs too.

One thing I did, which others have said it make it a little harder for him to get into the coop. He seems to have outgrown it.


----------



## Missy M (Mar 2, 2007)

I've reduced the door size. I may have to make it smaller, this is a test size. The dog is a big old lab, so hopefully she can't get through the reduced opening.


----------

