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where the hens are kept busy when not on the nests, egg eating is 

 practically unknown. 



The only sure cure for egg eating is the hatchet. Before this 

 is applied however an effort should be made to stop the vice. Two 

 or more china eggs should be p!aced in each nest, and plenty of 

 these eggs strewn in the litter upon the floor. Then pare the 

 upper beak of the guilty bird until it shows signs of bleeding, so 

 that when she strikes at the china eggs the pain will make her 

 stop. Generally this will effect a cure. Something can be done 

 by having the nests in a dark place and so arranged that it is 

 difficult for the hen to get at the egg after she has laid. A nail keg 

 makes an excellent nest for egg-eating hens. I have known men 

 to make a double-decked nest, so that the egg after being laid 

 would drop through a small hole into the receptacle below. Raw 

 salt pork, chopped fine, is recommended for egg-eating hens ; but 

 the best thing is never to allow them to contract the habit. 



Mr. S. D. Fox, to whom I have several times referred, has a 

 method of breaking hens of egg eating as novel as it is efficacious. 

 "My hens got to eating eggs one spring," he says, "and I went to 

 work to cure them. I got an egg, chipped off one end and took 

 out the yolk and white. Then I filled up the egg with soft soap, 

 sprinkled in a good stiff dose of cayenne pepper, stuck on the end 

 with white court plaster, and dropped the egg on the hen house 

 floor. They eat that egg. The next day I give 'em another. 

 They eat that. The next day I give 'em a third. They didn't 

 eat that, and they never eat another so far as I know. Didn't like 

 the flavor, I guess. Hurt 'em? Wall, no, I never see that it did. 

 Might have cleaned 'em out a little soft soap is good for that, 

 you know but it didn't rumple a feather, so far as I could see." 



