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Any ideas who's eating the eggs?

(35 Posts)
nanasam Wed 10-Apr-19 10:05:16

Good morning, all. We've recently been finding chicken's eggs around the open land near my home. The eggs are stamped, so not random hedgerow eggs and have a hole in one side with sharp edges. Today, I found this egg buried in a garden pot and it still has yolk inside! We thought it may be magpies, but wonder if they are clever enough to know they should prop it up in a pot. Does anyone have any ideas?

Jane10 Wed 10-Apr-19 10:12:29

Hedgehogs?

Auntieflo Wed 10-Apr-19 10:16:07

Can’t help with any sensible answers, but maybe, whoever it is, is waiting for his toast ‘soldiers’ to dip in his egg for breakfast!

EllanVannin Wed 10-Apr-19 10:19:19

Magpies will do this.

Gonegirl Wed 10-Apr-19 10:21:08

I found an egg buried in my garden just the same. I'm pretty sure a fox is the culprit but I've no idea how they get hold of them in the first place. Complete mystery.

nanasam Wed 10-Apr-19 10:21:46

Jane the pot is 15" high so I don't think a hedgehog could get up there. Someone must be buying eggs and putting them out specially for the wildlife. Very strange!

ninathenana Wed 10-Apr-19 10:23:32

Badger ?

MiniMoon Wed 10-Apr-19 10:25:14

My DH used to live on a farm when he was a little boy. They bred chickens and turkeys, and we're constantly having the eggs stolen by polecats.
He looked at your picture and knew instantly who the culprit is likely to be.

Gonegirl Wed 10-Apr-19 10:25:40

this from Whitby Gazette

nanasam Wed 10-Apr-19 10:35:58

Conegirl, do you think a fox is able to cut a neat hole in the egg? I'd have thought they'd crunch the whole thing up

MiniMoon Wed 10-Apr-19 10:43:43

If you don't have polecats in your area * nanasam* then perhaps it is a stoat or weasel. They both eat eggs.

Jane10 Wed 10-Apr-19 10:56:27

How interesting. You'll need to set up CC TV!

MamaCaz Wed 10-Apr-19 11:15:52

I have it on very good authority that we now have polecats in our part of Northamptonshire, so they are becoming more widespread.
However, even if these turned out to be nanasam's culprits (I don't know where she is), it still leaves the question of where the culprit is finding stamped eggs!

wildswan16 Wed 10-Apr-19 12:15:03

As the eggs are stamped I think someone is maybe leaving them for wildlife to benefit from - or having an early easter egg hunt.

nanasam Wed 10-Apr-19 14:41:06

I'm in Wiltshire, MamaCaz but I think polecats are pretty rare here. I'm confused as to how a mammal or rodent could bite a neat hole in the side of an egg without smashing it! Hey Ho, maybe we'll have to do as Jane10 says and set up CCTV. Thanks all flowers

oldgaijin Wed 10-Apr-19 22:44:18

It's an eggplant.

BlueSapphire Thu 11-Apr-19 08:29:19

MamaCaz, I live in Northampton and we have had a polecat in our back garden. This was about 10 years ago and I reported it to the county wildlife trust. They said that they had been disturbed from their usual habitat because of a new road being built and others had been reported in the same area. A couple of weeks later DH and I were out on a walk and saw one on a golf course. Strange about the eggs.

Juliet27 Thu 11-Apr-19 10:40:52

Rat?

Juliet27 Thu 11-Apr-19 10:43:41

I must admit to having left an egg out to see what happened to it. On our night vision camera we saw a fox carefully pick it up and carry it away.

ReadyMeals Thu 11-Apr-19 11:28:05

I don't know if it's magpies that are getting the eggs, but I do know the crow and magpie family are tested as being highly intelligent tool users and I wouldn't be at all surprised if they could work this sort of technique out.

Telly Thu 11-Apr-19 11:28:47

I thought this thread might be about Easter Eggs. I was going to say it might be me.blush

Callistemon Thu 11-Apr-19 11:34:08

Telly
grin

breeze Thu 11-Apr-19 12:01:56

Someone missing their doorstep delivery of milk and eggs perhaps? We no longer have a milkman but I know the rare 'lesser spotted milkman' can still be found in some rural areas grin

Fox or crafty weasel type creature pinching them out of the boxes on the doorstep. If they are stamped they're not getting them out of the chicken runs are they.

We've got a night view camera my husband sometimes uses for photography and I don't think it was that expensive if you really want to find out who the culprit is.

moggie57 Thu 11-Apr-19 13:19:03

foxes/crows/magpies/hedgehogs/wesasel/. get a night cam

lemongrove Thu 11-Apr-19 14:45:43

The odd thing is that the yolk is still visible inside the egg,
Perhaps the biter didn’t like the taste or was disturbed and ran off?
A lot of creatures are partial to an egg ( including me) so it could be a bird, a hedgehog, a polecat or martin, stoat, rat weasel etc.