Broody chicken ate egg, what now?

[Kat-bob]

I have 3 broody chickens and decided to put them to good use by incubateing some eggs for me, which I put under 2 of them yesterday eve. My chickens have never eaten their eggs before and are all happy to sit snuggled next to each other in the nest box. My orignal instinct was that two would be happy next too each other and would get along as they always had. A friend then told me not to do this at they could fight over the eggs/chicks so to use one. When I picked up fertile eggs my chicken woman said if they are fine next to each other usually they will be OK being mothers together plus a dozen large breed eggs is alot to put under 1 medium hen, so I went back to the two broodies idea. They happily accepted the eggs last night and still looked contented. I put one breed under one and another breed under another so I would know what was what when they hatched and if they were stealing each others eggs. I went out today to put them out to eat and found one of them had broken and eaten an egg she still had it stuck to her chest and all other her face, and taken some eggs that I put under the other chicken. The broken egg was all over the other eggs and the nest. I turfed the culprit other with my other chickens and quickly got a moist and a dry cloth and quickly cleaned the eggs and the nest up. As I can't imagine incubating egg yolk on the outside of hatching eggs will do them any good at all. Then put my good chicken back on all the remaining eggs.

I worry now is will my medium chicken be able to incubate 11 large eggs. Will the cleaned eggs be OK the white ones have been stained slightly. Did I do the right thing and where have I gone wrong? I do have another broody who is small and has an attitude hence why I didn't choose her, but I am cautious to have two in the same pen now. The good thing is the remaining one is slightly bigger and more placid that the others. and appears to be able to fit all 11 under her.

Thanks for your help.

[wolfsong]

Big and even medium chickens can quite often squash eggs accidentally, we had a cuckoo maran that managed to destroy all the eggs under her without meaning any harm! This is why most people use smaller birds, especially bantams such as silkies.
The egg on her face will have probably been from her attempts to clean it up (ie eat it).
So i say, keep going, depending on the temperament of the littl'un, maybe give her a few.
Good luck.

[Millymollymandy]

It's possible she broke it by accident and once broken couldn't help but eat it - they do love the taste of egg, unfortunately! When one of mine got older and started laying very brittle eggs the others just kept eating them, but once I'd got some new point of lay hens who laid 'normal' eggs none of them tried to break or eat the eggs (thank god!).

What's the latest anyway on the egg situation?