"Our chickens have never laid an egg at night, as far as I can recall. They usually lay them during the day, and we collect them when we see them, so they don't become soiled or get kicked around by the chickens. If the rats ate the egg in the…"

"I think skunks steal eggs too and my friend just told me they are having problems with skunks in their neighborhood because people are feeding wild cats and that brings them in. They are nocturnal, though and if your egg disappeared during the day…"

"Jeri,
I have four hens too. Their laying has decreased significantly in the past two months, from the point where we were giving our eggs to the neighbors (four, even five egs a day), to having to supplement our egg supply from the grocery store.…"

"I've thought about the snake option, but we're talking 2 to 3 eggs a day for the last 3 weeks. I don't think snakes can eat that much, unless there's a whole mess of them.. That would be pretty creepy.

I'm also having a hard time picturing how a…"

"Wow. This is weird. Every once in awhile another hen will come push the straw around so much it buries another egg that was already laid, but if the egg is in fact gone..... hmm. A roof rat stealing an egg would seem weird to me, especially getting…"

"Could also be a snake, but if you've seen roof rats...

Can you cover the holes at the top with hardware cloth?"

"I am guessing it was a roof rat (damn them!). Roof rats stole 3 cantalope from my garden, with no residual signs whatsoever.
Think Templeton from Charlotte's Web!"