Ducks ate their eggs

Sep 6, 2020
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This is our first time trying to hatch eggs. We don’t have an incubator so we were going to let our hens hatch them. We have 2 hens and 2 drake (we are working on getting more hens to get a better ratio). One hen started laying. She laid one egg didn’t lay the next day and then laid again the day after. They get locked up every night. We’ve noticed they have moved the eggs around in their house but I had read that until they lay a clutch it is normal for them not to put the eggs together and lay on them. So we didn’t touch them and hoped they would be safe. We also have two fake eggs in there to encourage laying. This morning when going to let them out I noticed the two eggs we had are now gone. No remains so I am assuming the ducks ate them. We are open to any suggestions and recommendations or any explanation on why this happened and what to do to prevent it. Like I said we are new and maybe a little ignorant so please only helpful tips.. Thanks !!
 
I saw my 3 year old Pekin duck munch on her egg shell yesterday for the first time ever. It had been broken by a crow. Crows are my duck egg eaters here. :barnie Rats can also get in the tightest places and that would be my first guess in your situation.
 
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I saw my 3 year old Parkin duck munch on her egg shell yesterday for the first time ever. It had been broken by a crow. Crows are my duck egg eaters here. :barnie Rats can also get in the tightest places and that would be my first guess in your situation.
I’m thinking they could have been trampled too. I have one egg now that a hen has been laying on and she actually moved from the house we lock them up in every night to our old hen house. I think to keep it more safe but we can’t lock her up in that so I’m conflicted on what to do, I don’t want to risk leaving her out at night for her to be with the egg but I also don’t want to move back where the others eggs got destroyed
 
I've had 4' and 5' long gopher snakes squeeze into the coop through a 1/2" x 2" gap to eat eggs. You'd be surprised at how vulnerable a critterproof coop is. A raccoon pulled the bottom of a door open once and managed to grab the leg of one of our pullets. Damn thing pulled her leg through the sliver of an opening and chewed it off mid-thigh but I caught him a few nights later and reconciled accounts.

I'd bet on snakes; I'm in Texas and they're starting to move around.
 
I’m thinking they could have been trampled too. I have one egg now that a hen has been laying on and she actually moved from the house we lock them up in every night to our old hen house. I think to keep it more safe but we can’t lock her up in that so I’m conflicted on what to do, I don’t want to risk leaving her out at night for her to be with the egg but I also don’t want to move back where the others eggs got destroyed
I would not leave her out. They have no defense against predators. I just threw out a four foot rat snake from one of my nest boxes. They love eggs too.
 
I’m also leaning towards snake. If it were the ducks id expect some sort of evidence (they wouldn’t eat it whole).

As far as the eggs, you could gather them for a while and see if:when one goes broody and then place them under her. If you don’t get a broody the eggs won’t hatch regardless.
 

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