Does anyones ducks ever consistantly use nesting boxes?

[Featherland]

The type of duck will be Welsh Harlequins and they will be locked up at night. I want to be able to accomodate any size duck I may get in the future. But I want to convert this particular coop from a chicken coop to a duck coop and I will be taking out the existing boxes and putting in ones that open from the outside.

 

[Red Maple Farms]

We seed our nesting boxes with white ceramic eggs, and the ducks use that as a guide of where it is safe to lay.

 

[suburbanduckmom]

My muscovy is smart and will move her nest once she figures out we are taking the eggs. We put wooden ones in to trick her to keep her laying in her nest box. Otherwise she would wait until we let her out in the morning to hide her eggs.

My pekin has never laid an egg in the same place twice. She lays around 6 am. The only time she laid outside of the night pen was when i let her out early.

 

[AllCoop'dUp]

Newbie question about duck nest boxes. How big do they need to be? I have a bank of chicken nests (3 rows of 5 cubbies) that the first row is 8" off the floor. Can the duck get to that? or will she be trying to lay on the floor. I can build a little nest into the corner of the coop and

pray that she uses it. I see many examples in the chicken section on chicken nesting boxes, but none for ducks. (other than Wood Ducks). Also...will the ducks and chickens lay eggs in the same nest? I can see it now...duck and chicken fighting over a nest.

 

[Amiga]

I use a couple of fifteen inch diameter wooden cheese boxes (they are round). I have them on the floor, as ducks are ground nesters. Muscovies are an exception, by the way.

I fill them with straw, which I change out once or twice a week to keep fresh.

I have two boxes for eleven ducks, which I am told is about right.

Most of the eggs get laid in one of the boxes.

 

[AllCoop'dUp]

Amiga --- do the nests need to be covered? Thanks...

 

[WadeMD]

A couple of my runners have started as well... they drop them where they stand! Just this morning, I watched a chocolate runner do a little dance, drop an egg where she stood, then blast off to join the rest. And she was standing less than 2' from nesting area (inside the shed is straw and I put a doghouse top filled with straw next to the pen). It was kind of funny, but so far I have found one against a fence, one in the middle of the yard, and then the one this morning. Nothing anywhere near a box.

The swedish, however, have been clucking over and looking at the nesting areas... so maybe runners just have no nurturing instinct left. Or maybe its cause the process is new to them and they don't know any better what is happening.

 

[Amiga]

I don't have a cover over the nests, no. And this morning, we had five eggs. Two in one box, three in another. The nests are in the two back corners of their 4'x8' house.

There have been some early eggs laid in the night pen (two or three), and one by the swimming pan. It seems that after the first egg, my runners lay them in the nest box.

I also placed one wooden egg in each box yesterday morning, and again today. I will see how it goes with two wooden eggs in each nest. This is an entirely intuitive thing on my part. Something about the runners being able to see that there are a couple of eggs in the nest seems helpful to me.

 

[WadeMD]

works for chickens...

Maybe I should find some golfballs to put in the nesting areas if your experiment works.

 

[Jarhead]

We only have Muscovies, but they use the high nest boxes in the coop right along with the chickens. Never had a stray egg.