What has been eating my eggs?

Since I had gotten home last week there has been a problem in the hen house.

courtesy of backyard chickens
 Something has been sucking out the egg and leaving the shell. Snakes would just eat the whole egg. So that leaves raccoons, skunks and possums. This is the first time for this to happen to me which is hard to believe.
I thought I have seen it all.
 No chickens were being hurt and this is happening during the day and no sign of who could be doing this, so I wasn't sure what I was dealing with. I'm thinking maybe a possum because no chickens were killed (they go for small chickens usually)  and its in the daytime. Raccoon are pretty much nocturnal and are killers. A skunk I think I would smell something. 

So Saturday night I moved the new hens out to the hen house thinking that they would be fine. And to spare you any horrid thoughts they are fine. 

But the old rooster aka  "Love Machine" was being the guardian of the hens he is and wouldn't let the new girls in the hen house that night. Made getting them in there quite the challenge. So I decided to separate him from the hens for a few days till the new girls get use to going in the hen house at night. So he was in a cage inside the house, time out.

Well unbenounced to me the egg sucking thief came again with the rooster inside the house. I wasn't aware of this all going on but I can imagine he was making himself known. 

Not knowing what had happened I went out to check him and the eggs and that is when I found him dead.

LOVE MACHINE

Yes I do not know what happen but I will tell you what I would like to think happen. He was in there protecting his turf and whether he was able to get out of the  cage himself or what, he chased it out of the house and battle the predator out in the yard and gave his life, for that is where I found him.

Now I do not know if it happened that way but it is my story to tell and I think it's a good way the remember him, protector.

The girls will miss him.

But fortunately one of the 12 new ones happens to be a rooster. They were supposed to be all pullets.

I feel bad about losing the "LOVE MACHINE"

But this is what I imagine heaven is for him.