blue's eggs

[70%cocoa]

Eggs older than 10 days old are unlikely to hatch. Plus, there is a limit to how many she can sit on and still keep them all warm enough. How big is your duck?

 

[stillmecle]

I do want her to sit on them. I hope I did this picture right

 

[Miss Lydia]

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They are pretty and I see the drake feather on the boy too.

I'm confused though because I have Muscovies and sometimes these girls will lay 15 to 20 eggs before beginning to sit and most or all will hatch so how can eggs only be viable for 10 days? My 2 cents now would be to let her start sitting if she so chooses. then in 7 to 10 days candle, then get rid of the ones that don't show progress.

 

[stillmecle]

I have no idea how to candle. I have heard of it but never done it or seen it done

 

[70%cocoa]

I wouldn't leave more than 10 or 12 eggs with her. If they have too many they can't keep then evenly heated and the hatch rate will be lower.

Just keep removing the oldest eggs, leaving her with about 10. The oldest ones will be the dirtiest ones.

They can take a while to go broody, if they are going to go broody at all. One of my Swedish laid 90 eggs before going broody.

 

[Miss Lydia]

70%cocoa :

I wouldn't leave more than 10 or 12 eggs with her. If they have too many they can't keep then evenly heated and the hatch rate will be lower.

Just keep removing the oldest eggs, leaving her with about 10. The oldest ones will be the dirtiest ones.

They can take a while to go broody, if they are going to go broody at all. One of my Swedish laid 90 eggs before going broody.

Now thats alot of eggs.

heres a link on candling duck eggs. https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=304863​

 

[stillmecle]

90 eggs.

by the time she was done she was probably gray feathered

 

[Miss Lydia]

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I agree,

 

[70%cocoa]

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Well, she certainly looks like the scruffiest scruffball that ever waddled the face of the earth....what with all the laying and the romance time and then pulling half her feathers out to line the nest... And then I didn't let the poor thing sit because I can't separate her off from the drake and other ducks. But she got over it. A week later she started laying again. She is a champion layer, especially for a Swedish.

Back to Stillmecle's duck..... As other people have said it's not a big worry to get a few soft shelled eggs, especially with a young bird. It doesn't necesarily mean that anything is wrong. You mentioned that sometimes she has laid two soft shelled eggs ina day. That is normal for soft shelled eggs. What can happen is that two yolks are released from the ovary in the one day but the body can't put down calcium on two separate eggs at the same time, so either they get combined as one double yolker or they are not coated in shell at all and are expelled as two soft shelled eggs. That is not something to worry about - it's just bad timing on the release of yolks.

I would only start to worry about it if she does not start laying hard eggs again within the week (that's just a guess on the timeframe by the way but personally I wouldn't want to see it go on for more than a few eggs in a row).

 

[FarmrGirl]

Yep, new layers will often have strange egg issues while their system works it all out. That's why you'll get a lot of double-yolkers from chickens and ducks in their first season of lay. Those soft-shelled eggs (or fart-eggs as they're called) are pretty common. I have a couple of ducks who will lay those when they get stressed out. After a ruckus, I'll come outside and see a fart-egg just sitting next to the pond in the middle of the day, kind of like she ejected it before it was done.

I would also take away her nest eggs. It's a good practice to remove any of your girls very first nests and let them lay and set a second for better hatchability. Of course, if she's been trying to set the nest you should candle first to ensure you don't toss out any babies