Amano shrimp eating eggs

I have a 20 gallon long with 4 panda garras and 9 Amano shrimp (4 males and 5 females). I’ve had the shrimp for about a year, and the females are always having babies (I’m not set up to breed so the babies just get sucked into the filter or become food.
Today when I went to feed my fish/shrimp, I noticed one of my Amano shrimp eating a big ball of something (it looked liked shrimp eggs), and one of my other berried Amano was missing half her eggs. I’m shocked because they’ve never done this before. Has anyone else ever experienced this? I have no idea how the ball of shrimp eggs got loose

 

I can imaging that they would eat the eggs since the larvae cannot survive in freshwater. It is the same as cleaning up some uneaten food in the tank.

 

Thanks for responding! I’m just mystified as to how it came about, and also because they’ve never done that before.
Did shrimp A attack shrimp B and steal the eggs? Did shrimp B take out her own eggs and shrimp A was just opportunistic and stole them afterwards?
I’ve tried to look it up but no one has posted anything similar to my situation.
I just wasn’t sure if this was something they do and I just didn’t know. Nature is crazy sometimes!

 

I would imagine the one shrimp released the eggs and the other took advantage. Why let the eggs go to waste when they are going to rot anyways?

 

It's sad to know they carry those babies only to be born to die, but that's a fact in fresh water. I've never seen that either but it's all about timing. I've seen guppies give birth and gulp their young, I'm sure if she was giving birth, she'd grab and eat them too. As my fish dealer said, "To a fish, food is food." I always figure it's a little free protein for my community tank when those babies come.

 

I definitely agree it’s sad, I cried a little when one of shrimp first “gave birth” and all the babies got sucked into the filter.
This time though (referring to my original post), my shrimp was not releasing her eggs yet, she was newly berried.