Strange duck eggs?? Is something wrong?

[ChaoticRogue14]

Beautiful eggs, I believe Pekin lay a white egg but sometimes when ducks first begin to lay their eggs can be a differnet color then change as they have laid for a while. like my Muscovy's sometimes when starting up lay a khaki colored egg then it changes to beige. Maybe just be your Rouen though hard to say.

I guess I'll just have to wait and see. Thanks so much!

 

[Jen1979]

Thanks Miss Lydia

Gorgeous eggs ChaoticRogue14, I've been wondering how I'll be able to tell who's laying too! My chickens all lay different coloured eggs so it's easy! Not so with my ducks!

 

[ChaoticRogue14]

Thanks, Jen!
Neither of my ducks have been setting but my Pekin caught me handling the eggs and tried to take it away from me, so that might be a sign. But my rouen still has female coloring but if s/he hasn't gotten male feathers yet, I guess it's safe to assume s/he is a female too.
I wish you luck with your ducks and congratulations on them starting to lay!

 

[Jen1979]

Thanks it's very exciting!

Good luck with yours too, so are you hatching these ones?

 

[ChaoticRogue14]

I would love to but I think I've got two females and they haven't set the eggs because I heckled them again when I changed their water and the eggs were frozen...
but if I can successfully winter my ducks, I'm going to look for a male to breed them with. Hopefully I can teach them to incubate the eggs by then. I'll have to research how to do that but I think until then, I'll just take the eggs and use them for baking. I hear they're great for that!
What are your plans with hour eggs?

 

[Jen1979]

Ah yes, I see. So far we've been using them for baking too (and yes, they are awesome!). We have a drake so eventually we might see if we can hatch some. I might try doing it under one of our chickens who constantly goes broody (we don't have a rooster so she's never going to get to hatch anything otherwise!). It's Summer here at the moment so we're doing the opposite, trying to keep our ducks cool!

 

[ChaoticRogue14]

Wow you're lucky!
I was doing some reading and apparently ducks won't set until they're satisfied with the size of their clutch which can get to be between 8 and 16 eggs, but it also depends on the duck too. And they aren't picky about whose egg they sit on.
What boggles my mind is how an entire clutch can survive while the hen is amassing her egg army over the course of a few weeks (from what I understand).

 

[Jen1979]

Oh wow, that is quite amazing! I didn't know that. I wonder how they survive too. When she's obviously getting off them constantly to eat etc, how do the first eggs survive?

We are very lucky here in Western Australia, our winters just wouldn't even be considered cold by anyone else's standards. Although, we do have to put up with hot summers I guess! Summer is our scariest season, deadly snakes and bush fires

I am completely fascinated by ducks, I love learning new things about them! Can't imagine life without them now

 

[ChaoticRogue14]

They're pretty amazing. The first day mine saw snow (a week or so ago), they complained to be let out of their pen, went to both ponds, discovered ice, circled around the property and went back into their house and complained some more.
It was very funny.

On another note, Muscovy hens are apparently very good brood mothers.

Maybe you can put I've cubes in your ducks' pool to keep them cool? Just an idea. You could put peas and veggie or fruit chunks in them too as a little treat as they melt.

 

[Jen1979]

Aww that's so cute about the snow and iced up pond! Haha they are so funny!

That's an excellent idea about treat I've cubes for their pool! I'm going to start making them some today!