Mandarin ducks cracking their eggs!!

[judsenn]

Both my ducks seem to be crushing and cracking their own eggs. Separate nesting boxes. I grabbed 2 of 6 out of the one ducks nest (the other 4 were fine) All 6 are moving and I can see their little beaks in the air cell. So any day now I'm hoping to have little ones running around. However the 2 that have the hairline cracking throughout have extremely large air cells. And one of the 2 looks as if the duckling actually made an external pip...BUT ITS AT THE WRONG END!!! Just looking to see if anyone's had experience with this and and tips that could lead to a successful hatch. I hate thinking that if I do nothing they'll both just die. And lastly... are my ducks just fat or what?? This is their 2nd clutch bc I had to remove their 1st set due to the cracks!!

 

[GermanKennhuhn]

@BirdsBeesTrees

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

@MGG do you have Mandarin ducks?

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

They are definitely getting ready to hatch.
Do your ducks get layer feed or oyster shells or egg shells to eat?
I just wonder if the eggshells are fragile. Do the hens get upset when you look at their eggs and maybe crack them on accident?

 

[MGG]

Both my ducks seem to be crushing and cracking their own eggs. Separate nesting boxes. I grabbed 2 of 6 out of the one ducks nest (the other 4 were fine) All 6 are moving and I can see their little beaks in the air cell. So any day now I'm hoping to have little ones running around. However the 2 that have the hairline cracking throughout have extremely large air cells. And one of the 2 looks as if the duckling actually made an external pip...BUT ITS AT THE WRONG END!!! Just looking to see if anyone's had experience with this and and tips that could lead to a successful hatch. I hate thinking that if I do nothing they'll both just die. And lastly... are my ducks just fat or what?? This is their 2nd clutch bc I had to remove their 1st set due to the cracks!!

They shouldn't be breaking them like that. I'd personally pull them and hatch them all the rest of their way yourself. What exactly are you feeding them?

@MGG do you have Mandarin ducks?

I do. Thanks for the tag!

 

[judsenn]

Yes... 2 pairs of mandarins. The first clutch of eggs and now this one.. I only went in when the ducks were out of the box ...taking a quick swim. I check each box to see how many eggs they are sitting on. Then anywhere between 20 & 25 days I go back in and quickly shine my lil flashlight on each one (remove and duds or ones that stopped growing) But each time the eggs have cracks. At least this time one duck had 4 not. And all 7 of my other ducks aren't...compared to 2 months ago and all 19 combined eggs were cracked and none of them hatched!! All dead in shell. This is their first year laying eggs though (both are almost 2 years old) so idk. We feed them an allflock feed from our local mill. Maybe adding some extra calcium to their diet wouldn't hurt but they don't seem thin or extra fragile.

 

[judsenn]

They shouldn't be breaking them like that. I'd personally pull them and hatch them all the rest of their way yourself. What exactly are you feeding them?

I do. Thanks for the tag!

That was my thinking last time and I pulled half of each ducks eggs. Half I incubated and half I left for nature to do its thing. None of the ducks hatched at all. Only one miraculously hatched for me...however it started hatching and was almost out of shell and I could clearly see the yolk wasn't absorbed. I did what I normally do for any bird in that situation and long story short it absorbed...looked pretty healthy and good for the first 2 days then BOOM 3rd day dead.
My other ducks eggs aren't close to hatching yet, maybe another week or 2 yet. And I didn't want to pull those and incubate them bc I've read a lot about how difficult it is / low hatch rate. So now I'm torn.

 

[Climax]

I have mandarin Ducks that have laid for the past 2 years in a row, I can share a little bit of what I have seen from them. My ducks have also cracked their eggs before, I can't be 100% sure, but it seems it comes from experience, lack of space in the box, and lack of calcium.
This year they laid eggs in all 4 of my boxes.
The first was a tiny one that I built in the tree of a stump (HUGE MISTAKE). It seemed good, she laid about 6 eggs and started setting on them perfectly, I was really happy that she was setting on them good and none of them were getting cracked, then a few days before they were set to hatch, I went to check on the eggs and realized what a fool I was. The mistake that I made was because of the small size, the duck DID in fact eventually crack one of the eggs, and when it did crack it left a lot of bad bacteria under her. Normally in nature this wouldn't have been a problem because bacteriophages and other viruses that help sterilize would have been present to help deal with this. BUT, there was no airflow into the box, especially when the duck was on them because she took up all of the box. So naturally the bacteria, not having anything to stop it, got into all of the eggs and killed the embryos.
Another mistake I have seen, is that the ducks WILL try to both set and lay in a single box if they don't like the other boxes, this is what happened the first year. I had 0 experience at all with these ducks (or any ducks at all, especially ones that lay in these types of nesting boxes) so I blew it off as I have seen my chickens do this, and it always worked out (big mistake). Similarly to the first one, there was very little room for landing, so they broke the eggs quite often, there was a cracked egg that they pushed out every few days laying on the ground. But in addition to the little room there was, the ducks would compete for the eggs, treating them a bit too aggressively, which wouldn't be too huge of a problem if they were chicken eggs, but these are mandarin duck eggs, they are extremely temperamental, even if the eggs are treated perfectly, in captivity, or in an incubator it is very unlikely for all, if not the majority for the eggs to hatch. Not understanding fully how temperamental they were is what lead for me to only hatch 4 out of 20 or so eggs from the first year (all 4 of which hatched from 6 of them that I put into my incubator). And the biggest caution of them all, is the temperature outside, and the time of year, HEAT WILL OBLITERATE THEIR ODDS FOR HATCHING THEIR EGGS. You HAVE to make sure that it stays cool in the box (Not under the duck of course).
And the final mistake that I have been realizing much more recently is the bedding I used in the nester boxes, that played a massive role in all of the other mistakes I made as well. so the mistake I made, was using dried grass and dried plant material that I could find for the nesting material, the problem wasn't in the grass itself, but the fact the ducks found it edible. As you would expect, they got hungry while sitting on their eggs and were like "Oh hey, breakfast in bed" and eventually ate all of their nesting material, leaving only their feathers. Obviously this resulted in the eggs eventually ending up sitting on the base of the box, on the wood, there was no insulation, nothing to pad the eggs when the duck jumped in the box, and this is when they started getting cracked.

This year from what I learned last year I have hatched 12 so far (still 2 ducks setting on some eggs, idk if they will hatch tbh) 8 of which I hatched in my incubator, and 4 under one of the ducks.
I still have a LOT of stuff to learn, but I did learn most of it from their most recent breeding season in the past 2 months. But I have a bit of stuff I can help you with.
If you plan on hatching the eggs in your incubator you will have a MUCH Higher hatch rate if you let a broody hen set on the eggs for the first 10 days or so, when you do get them, keep the humidity High, as the time under the chicken has already shrunk the air cell all that they need (most of the time) I keep my humidity at 65% until day 25, and I mist them once a day with water that has a very small amount of hydrogen peroxide, they do usually hatch at day 30-32 for me, and from pip to zip it is usually a couple days, Lockdown humidity to around 75%.
If you plan on letting the ducks set on the eggs, use material that they won't eat, make sure they have lots of room in the box, make sure air can flow into the box, and don't let them try hatching any more than 8-10 eggs, as the ducks are very small and can't really fit many under them, as well, if they have access to swimming water, MAKE SURE IT IS ALWAYS CLEAN, you don't want the duck to get into really dirty water with lots of duck feces and other stuff, then climb on her eggs.
I do not have much experience and I am always looking to learn more, but I sure hope that I helped a bit.

Also, this is my first time trying to compile this many words into a single post so its probably VERY Unorganized, sorry about that

TLDR; Just read it I can't summarize it, or I don't want to

 

[judsenn]

I have mandarin Ducks that have laid for the past 2 years in a row, I can share a little bit of what I have seen from them. My ducks have also cracked their eggs before, I can't be 100% sure, but it seems it comes from experience, lack of space in the box, and lack of calcium.
This year they laid eggs in all 4 of my boxes.
The first was a tiny one that I built in the tree of a stump (HUGE MISTAKE). It seemed good, she laid about 6 eggs and started setting on them perfectly, I was really happy that she was setting on them good and none of them were getting cracked, then a few days before they were set to hatch, I went to check on the eggs and realized what a fool I was. The mistake that I made was because of the small size, the duck DID in fact eventually crack one of the eggs, and when it did crack it left a lot of bad bacteria under her. Normally in nature this wouldn't have been a problem because bacteriophages and other viruses that help sterilize would have been present to help deal with this. BUT, there was no airflow into the box, especially when the duck was on them because she took up all of the box. So naturally the bacteria, not having anything to stop it, got into all of the eggs and killed the embryos.
Another mistake I have seen, is that the ducks WILL try to both set and lay in a single box if they don't like the other boxes, this is what happened the first year. I had 0 experience at all with these ducks (or any ducks at all, especially ones that lay in these types of nesting boxes) so I blew it off as I have seen my chickens do this, and it always worked out (big mistake). Similarly to the first one, there was very little room for landing, so they broke the eggs quite often, there was a cracked egg that they pushed out every few days laying on the ground. But in addition to the little room there was, the ducks would compete for the eggs, treating them a bit too aggressively, which wouldn't be too huge of a problem if they were chicken eggs, but these are mandarin duck eggs, they are extremely temperamental, even if the eggs are treated perfectly, in captivity, or in an incubator it is very unlikely for all, if not the majority for the eggs to hatch. Not understanding fully how temperamental they were is what lead for me to only hatch 4 out of 20 or so eggs from the first year (all 4 of which hatched from 6 of them that I put into my incubator). And the biggest caution of them all, is the temperature outside, and the time of year, HEAT WILL OBLITERATE THEIR ODDS FOR HATCHING THEIR EGGS. You HAVE to make sure that it stays cool in the box (Not under the duck of course).
And the final mistake that I have been realizing much more recently is the bedding I used in the nester boxes, that played a massive role in all of the other mistakes I made as well. so the mistake I made, was using dried grass and dried plant material that I could find for the nesting material, the problem wasn't in the grass itself, but the fact the ducks found it edible. As you would expect, they got hungry while sitting on their eggs and were like "Oh hey, breakfast in bed" and eventually ate all of their nesting material, leaving only their feathers. Obviously this resulted in the eggs eventually ending up sitting on the base of the box, on the wood, there was no insulation, nothing to pad the eggs when the duck jumped in the box, and this is when they started getting cracked.

This year from what I learned last year I have hatched 12 so far (still 2 ducks setting on some eggs, idk if they will hatch tbh) 8 of which I hatched in my incubator, and 4 under one of the ducks.
I still have a LOT of stuff to learn, but I did learn most of it from their most recent breeding season in the past 2 months. But I have a bit of stuff I can help you with.
If you plan on hatching the eggs in your incubator you will have a MUCH Higher hatch rate if you let a broody hen set on the eggs for the first 10 days or so, when you do get them, keep the humidity High, as the time under the chicken has already shrunk the air cell all that they need (most of the time) I keep my humidity at 65% until day 25, and I mist them once a day with water that has a very small amount of hydrogen peroxide, they do usually hatch at day 30-32 for me, and from pip to zip it is usually a couple days, Lockdown humidity to around 75%.
If you plan on letting the ducks set on the eggs, use material that they won't eat, make sure they have lots of room in the box, make sure air can flow into the box, and don't let them try hatching any more than 8-10 eggs, as the ducks are very small and can't really fit many under them, as well, if they have access to swimming water, MAKE SURE IT IS ALWAYS CLEAN, you don't want the duck to get into really dirty water with lots of duck feces and other stuff, then climb on her eggs.
I do not have much experience and I am always looking to learn more, but I sure hope that I helped a bit.

Also, this is my first time trying to compile this many words into a single post so its probably VERY Unorganized, sorry about that

TLDR; Just read it I can't summarize it, or I don't want to

Thank you for sharing your experiences. The first "batch" my ducks laid all ended up having those tiny lightening bolt looking cracks throughout. As I earlier stated none hatched except one , one I had to assist as it was completely shrink wrapped and still hadn't absorbed the yolk. It was seemingly healthy and vivacious until the 3rd day. I noticed it just wasn't as spunky as usual and then it dawned on me..."has this duckling eaten?" I had it with little bantam chicks that hatched around the same time so I figured they'd teach him. Well I thought wrong. It died later that night. I guess something else could have been wrong with it too but the same thing happened with the 3 I just recently hatched. I noticed the day after they hatched they still weren't eating or drinking, same scenario...little chicks in with them. The end of the 2nd day I still hadn't witnessed them drink or eat yet. So enough was enough... I decided to put them in with my cayuga ducklings that were born almost 2 weeks prior..they are double their size so I was a bit weary. I made what I call my "save a chick superfood" which is a higher protein crumble that I mix with infant pediasure, hard boiled egg, tablespoon of yogurt and a teaspoon of polyvisol drops. I let the ducklings get acquainted first. Mandies went right over to the cayugas and tried nestling up underneath them, lol. Then I put the shallow dish of food in and all of them devoured it within minutes. Well...except one mandy... it started to act just like the other one that died..and ended the same way. But the 2 remaining are doing absolutely wonderful.

You mentioned something that I've been trying to find an answer to for literally months!! You found eggs on the ground? We have been baffled on how the heck we keep finding broken eggs throughout their enclosure. We first thought some kind of rodent like a rat was getting into their boxes. But it didn't make sense how a rat would get it up and out of the box. Then we thought some kind of native to us bird like a barn swallows or starlings. The eggs always had a hole in it so we figured the birds would wait til our ducks went for a quick dip in the pool and then sneak in and fly out with the egg. I don't know, it may sound silly but we couldn't figure out what or how it was happening. Most of the eggs we found were right underneath their box and some were not developed at all as others looked to be completely normal and still developing eggs. 1 or 2 were rotten and gross, and a handful had the contents of the egg completely gone..like nothing left except the shell...so something clearly ate it. So I guess my question is... do these ducks drop their own (or other ducks) eggs out? How??? We did actually think maybe it was them at first, but same thing with the rat...how would they get it up and out ? I'm so fascinated by this now. Ironically today I was in the grassy part of their pen, away from where they nest and lo and behold .. I found an egg!! I bent down to pick it up and sadly it was cracked on the top and bloody. I peeled some of the top egg off to see what was going on with it.. and I could see it still moving The eggs she is sitting on have another 8 days to go..so there was no saving that lil duckling. But again..Can't figure out why it was there in the first place! About 10 feet or more away from where the nest boxes are. And why kick out a growing still developing egg?? I just don't get it. I'm pretty close to investing in some cameras to put out there!

 

[judsenn]