a few questions for experienced duck owners

[shannondee12]

I have a couple different questions about ducks. This is my first year with them and I have 2 Khaki Campbell drakes and 1 crested blue swedish duck and 1 blue swedish/khaki campbell duck. They are both laying everyday and I am getting one white/cream egg and one green/blue egg. I thought that I had read somewhere that the blue swedish would lay the green/blue egg and the Khaki cross would lay the cream colored egg. Hubby got me a dozen fertile blue swedish eggs and a new incubator for Valentine's day. When I got the fertile eggs, they are all cream colored. Have I been wrong for the last month on who is laying what egg?

Also, we are loving the eggs. Except, the shells are so hard to crack. I end up with shell in it everytime. They free range all day and have layer pellets free choice. I don't give extra calcium so is there something that I should be doing to make it easier to crack the shells open?

 

[Amiga]

Actually, no, they are supposed to be that hard to crack open. I crack mine into a small clear pyrex ramekin and then if I get shell in there, I can see it and remove it easily.

I think it was HollyDuckFarmer who put a dab of food coloring on her duck's cloaca to see who was laying which egg.

 

[HollyDuckFarmer]

Hi! Strong eggshells are a good sign and you certainly don't want them weak. My KCs lay cream-ish to white shelled eggs. I don't know about Sweedish, sorry. I believe that I read that the color of eggshells is genetic and passed down from the duck 's father. So I guess you might need to wait a generation to test out that theory. I do have here an Indian Runner that will sometimes lay blue eggs. So a KC carrying that gene could lay a blue egg. HTH.