Call Duck Troubles

[polishgurl47]

:/im in a pickle... i am currently housing a trio of call ducks at a friends house and i want to start to collect eggs in December to hatch for the upcoming fair season. im quite sure at least two of them are of laying age. do they only lay when they have a nest? All three are housed in a coop with some porcelain and old english chickens. are their eggs any different than chickens? Also, would chickens lay eggs in the bucket if i used that method? How do i breed in the winter if i dont give them access an open pool? (cant have it in the coop, otherwise the other birds can drownd. for family issues i cant keep them here... (possible can convince family to let me keep them for a month just for breeding reasons) best solution?

This is our first time with ducks so there are many dark spots in our knowledge of them

 

[sourland]

Under natural conditions I doubt that your call ducks will start laying until late Spring: mid March or so. I really don't know whether or not supplemental light will cause them to start laying earlier. Can't think why it wouldn't. The chickens will lay eggs anywhere the ducks will. The call duck eggs will be somewhat larger than the bantam eggs. You should have no problem telling the difference. Good luck. Depending upon the quality of the birds, call duck eggs can be very difficult to hatch. It almost seems like the better the bird the harder it is to hatch their eggs.

 

[priss]

My calls began laying this year in Feb and we were surprised at how early that was. I don't know much about ducks because these are the first I've ever had but I they stopped laying a couple of months ago and I'm not expecting them to lay until spring. I'm hoping they don't begin as early as Feb again because it makes it a very long laying period which seemed to exhaust them out a bit. Their eggs are perfect, smaller than chicken eggs and the most gorgeous duck egg blue (how did they know to do them that colour? lol!) I don't think they can be mistaken for chicken eggs but them I don't know if there are any breeds of chicken that have very different type eggs...
Here is a picture:

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