Some laying hens learn to break eggs whereas others scrounge on the contents after egg breakage. Dominant scroungers can drive away subordinate egg breakers. If sensitive to inequity, subordinate egg breakers might counter by inhibiting egg breaking behaviour when dominants are nearby. We hypothesized that egg breaking decisions are affected by the dominance status of nearby hens. We predicted that subordinate egg breaking hens would exhibit longer latencies to break eggs when in the presence of a dominant flockmate than when alone, whereas egg breaking by dominant hens would be unaffected by presence or absence of subordinates. In groups containing egg breaking hens, we assessed dominance rank according to ratio of aggressive pecks and threats given and received. We then observed 16 pairs of familiar hens comprising one dominant and one subordinate hen, of which one was an egg breaker, during a 4-min test starting when an egg was placed in the nest. We also observed the egg breaking hens while alone with an egg, balancing for order of each condition. There was no difference in latency to break eggs when hens were alone or paired (median 36 s; Wilcoxon Matched Pairs Signed Ranks Test: W=43.5; P>0.05). Latency to break eggs when paired was unaffected by the dominance status of the egg breaker (median 30.5 s; Mann-Whitney U Test: U=39; P>0.05). We found no evidence that subordinate egg breakers (n=8) were less willing to break eggs in the presence of dominant scroungers. Scroungers rapidly approached hens pecking at eggs and both scroungers and egg breakers were able to consume some of the contents even when subordinates were deterred by aggression. The egg breakers may have been insensitive to inequity, unable to inhibit their egg breaking behaviour, and, within the confines of a furnished cage, unable to conceal this behaviour.