Seasonal dips in duck egg production -- what to expect?

[kimwg]

Hi all -- I am relatively new to duck egg production. I have a flock of 4 2-year-old khaki campbells, 6 1-year-old golden hybrid 300's, and 2 1-year-old silver appleyards. (These are the hens, I have a few assorted drakes that go around with them). We also keep chickens. All are free range with free access to a 14% protein feed (a general feed that we give to adult pigs and chickens as well) plus free access to oyster shell. They also have a lot of pasture and canals to forage in.

Our laying ducks were laying like crazy over spring, like our chickens. I find our chickens will slow down a lot over summer, and I was prepared for the ducks to do so as well. However, the duck egg production has ground to a HALT. I'm lucky if I get a handful a week these days. Is this typical for ducks? Certainly I expect little production in winter, but with the abundance of forage and insects I'm surprised the duck egg production has dropped so much.

It has been a relatively mild summer here in SE Michigan, usually in the 80's in June and July this year so I'm surprised that their egg production has dipped so much. Our duck eggs had become a very popular addition to our chicken eggs, so I'm wondering if there's anything I can do to help boost their production? I had thought that maybe they were hiding their eggs, so we kept them confined to their sleeping area for a few days, but didn't have any increase in eggs -- apparently they're just not laying much. They don't appear to be molting.

Thanks for any advice or observations on seasonality in duck egg production and/or strategies to have more even production across seasons.

 

[sourland]

They may have a burst of laying this autumn, or they may wait until next spring to start another laying cycle.

 

[ruthhope]

My son's pekins and muscovy have dropped off egg laying for hte last 2 months. His "Big Girl" a 16 month old Pekin, has laid through consistently since last August. His second pekin stopped laying in December and restarted about the end of February. She is again dropping off laying. His muscovy, now 12 months old didn;t start laying until this year and hten got broody 2 moths ago. She is also stopping of laying now. So from three females, my son curently gets 1 egg every day; commonly 2 eggs but very rarely [less than weekly] 3 eggs.

I just wish Big Girl would take a break and give her body a rest from all this reproduction!