Confused about duck gender

[mrslamb]

Hey there,

So we got four ducks (2 buffs, 2 pekins) supposedly all female in February of this year. A couple days ago, we got our first egg, and have been getting one each day. I am now really confused and wondering if we have some males. One of the buff ducks I have caught twice on top of the other duck, pecking at her neck and head (I'm assuming this is mating related?) I know the tell about tail feathers but to be honest all their tail feathers look the same, and I thought that they all quacked regular and were female. Now since we only have one egg I'm scared maybe 3 are male? Do sometimes they all start laying at different times?

Also- I wasn't prepared for males- so how do I know if an egg is fertilized? Will the mom just be sitting on it more or what? I feel so lost about this now, we just wanted eggs, not little ducklings!

Thanks for any help!

 

[Miss Lydia]

Hey there,

So we got four ducks (2 buffs, 2 pekins) supposedly all female in February of this year. A couple days ago, we got our first egg, and have been getting one each day. I am now really confused and wondering if we have some males. One of the buff ducks I have caught twice on top of the other duck, pecking at her neck and head (I'm assuming this is mating related?) I know the tell about tail feathers but to be honest all their tail feathers look the same, and I thought that they all quacked regular and were female. Now since we only have one egg I'm scared maybe 3 are male? Do sometimes they all start laying at different times?

Also- I wasn't prepared for males- so how do I know if an egg is fertilized? Will the mom just be sitting on it more or what? I feel so lost about this now, we just wanted eggs, not little ducklings!

Thanks for any help!

Just because one starts to lay doesn't mean they will all begin at once but you should start to see the rest start soon. But ducks will climb onto other ducks and go through the mating behavior just like a drake will so most likely you have all ducks especially since you haven't seen a drake feather yet. I am assuming they all are 5 months or older?

 

[ArmstrongRanch]

From pictures I've looked at a buff drake would have a grey head? see http://www.metzerfarms.com/BuffDucks.cfm?Breed=Buff&BirdType=Duck&ID=B so I would think if the buffs are all buff, including the head, they should be female? It may be they are establishing dominance. Curly tail feathers are also an indication of a drake, but they might not have grown in yet, and can molt out, so they are not a guarantee. Quacking loudly is usually an indication of a duck but I'm not sure for the breeds you have whether that holds true. We had Cayuga and for those, the male is practically mute and sounds not much different than Donald Duck... and the females can quack so they're heard several hundred yards away...

Yes, birds that hatch together can start to lay at different times. One of our ducks started laying about a month after the first, even though they hatched at the same time. The first bird to lay produces smaller eggs and the one that started later produces larger eggs.

As far as how to tell if the eggs are fertile - you can candle them with a bright mini-mag flashlight or purchase a really powerful candler. By about the 5th or 7th day you should see blood vessels if it's fertile and developing, so you can candle before cracking open just to be sure. When our Welsh Harlequin ducks started to lay, they lay their eggs in their pond. Then when they were fertile they lay them in the nest box - which they kept SPOTLESS - and then set on them - but, that is a breed of duck known to go broody. I'm not sure with the breeds you've got whether they go broody or not? Some ducks don't go broody. They lay and they don't sit regardless of whether the eggs are fertile or not.

If you collect the eggs promptly as early in the morning as possible, (and a second time in the afternoon if you have the odd bird that lays late), promptly wash and refrigerate the eggs you won't have any bad moments of cracking open a partly developed fertile egg... The cold will prevent any development. Fertile eggs have to incubate at warm temperatures for the embryo to develop. If you leave the eggs out long enough in sufficiently hot weather and they are fertile, you could have an oops moment there on cracking them open, even if the ducks aren't sitting on them, if you have drakes. Not if you don't. I had one oops moment with an egg stored on the countertop in my house. I think about 50 degrees or less is enough to prevent development - houses are typically warmer than that...

If you are getting an egg a day, you may already have two ducks laying - if the ducks are actually laying every other day. You'd have to separate them out one at a time to figure out which duck, or ducks, are laying.

 

[Miss Lydia]

We have a member who uses food coloring and put some around the vents of her ducks to determine who is laying the egg will be pretty when it comes out too. And just because it's fertile doesn't mean the duck will sit on it more, I have ducks sitting on nothing right now. Fertile eggs taste no different than no fertile ones.

 

[mrslamb]

Thanks! This has helped ease my worries a bit! and that dye on their bottom is interesting hahaha I never would have thought of that!

 

[cymbaline]

From pictures I've looked at a buff drake would have a grey head? see http://www.metzerfarms.com/BuffDucks.cfm?Breed=Buff&BirdType=Duck&ID=B so I would think if the buffs are all buff, including the head, they should be female? It may be they are establishing dominance. Curly tail feathers are also an indication of a drake, but they might not have grown in yet, and can molt out, so they are not a guarantee. Quacking loudly is usually an indication of a duck but I'm not sure for the breeds you have whether that holds true. We had Cayuga and for those, the male is practically mute and sounds not much different than Donald Duck... and the females can quack so they're heard several hundred yards away...

If you are getting an egg a day, you may already have two ducks laying - if the ducks are actually laying every other day. You'd have to separate them out one at a time to figure out which duck, or ducks, are laying.

I second all of this. My buff boy already has a grey head, has had it for a while, and he was hatched in March. And he sounds very raspy - girls (I have mallards and a runner) are very loud and clear. My mallard girls started within a week of each other, but it wasn't steady at first, so yeah, if you're getting an egg every day, it's very possibly that more than one is laying.

I would also add to watch for odd behaviour around this time. When mine first started, I had seen one egg, and nothing for a day or two. Then I came home one evening and one girl was sitting down a lot...like, walk right up to her and she'd hardly move. When I did get her to move, she was walking really funny. With the help of folks on this forum, I determined she was likely having trouble laying her first egg, so I brought her in to a tub of warm water, which I kept changing every hour or two to make sure it stayed warm, and gave her some dandelion greens and extra vitamins. Got up the next morning and she was running around my bathroom and when I dumped her tub, there was an egg!

 

[mrslamb]

Wow! Interesting- one of my buff ducks has been laying around a lot too and walking weird. I kind of figured it was a niacin thing since we hadn't given them any extra supplement so far. A couple days ago I started sprinkling brewers yeast on their food. Then we got an egg and thought maybe that was it, but she is still laying down and walking weird (though not as much) so maybe she didn't lay that egg and she still needs to? They've been in their kiddie pool all morning, you think I should have her in warmer water though to help?

 

[cymbaline]

Wow! Interesting- one of my buff ducks has been laying around a lot too and walking weird. I kind of figured it was a niacin thing since we hadn't given them any extra supplement so far. A couple days ago I started sprinkling brewers yeast on their food. Then we got an egg and thought maybe that was it, but she is still laying down and walking weird (though not as much) so maybe she didn't lay that egg and she still needs to? They've been in their kiddie pool all morning, you think I should have her in warmer water though to help?

Mine didn't have any trouble after the first one, but it's entirely possible that a duck could continue to have issues. Here is a link to my thread so you can see all of everyone's suggestions/ideas/thoughts. https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/818969/egg-bound-or-something-else-worried

 

[mrslamb]

Mine didn't have any trouble after the first one, but it's entirely possible that a duck could continue to have issues. Here is a link to my thread so you can see all of everyone's suggestions/ideas/thoughts. https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/818969/egg-bound-or-something-else-worried

Thanks so much for the info! My buff duck (Gretta) seems to be doing better, so either it was more egg laying or perhaps the brewers yeast which helped? Who knows. I'm so confused on who is laying what, our first egg was the size of a chicken egg, the next three were much larger than chicken eggs, now eggs 4 and 5 were back to small again! Last night we put up my daughter's video monitor in the duck house to see who layed what hahaha We still have to watch the video, but i'm pretty sure one of my buffs did the small egg from today. Thanks for all your help everyone!

 

[cymbaline]

Glad to hear she's doing better!
I would lean toward the Buffs laying the smaller ones and the Pekins laying the bigger ones, but I suppose anything could happen, lol. Dunno if they would be different colors or not. My Mallard eggs have a light blue-green tinge to them. In the first few weeks that mine were laying I found this, haha:

I should have taken a photo with something else as a size reference, but the egg on the left is a normal sized egg. The one on the right is more like a robin-egg or something, and felt totally empty. Apparently sometimes they make a shell with nothing in it, lol.