Ducks not laying—thoughts?

[publicradio]

A month ago, I obtained 7 hens: 3 Moscovies and 5 Khakis. The place where I got them was just filthy, and I don't think these birds were well taken care of. One khaki has a slight, emerging angel wing and chronic wet feather. One muscovy has two severe angel wings and a crooked neck. The rest seem fine.

The first morning after I brought them home, I got two eggs in the coop. The following morning, I got another egg. Then, after that, nothing. The lady who gave them to me said they hatched last fall, and this is probably true of the khakis, but the muscovies seem older to me,

The lady said they'll only eat crumbles—not pellets—and that she gave them half feed and half scratch grains. I always thought that you weren't supposed to give more than 10% scratch grains, but the lady at Tractor Supply told me she has ducks and she gives them about 50% scratch grains, too. She said the ducks will pick through and eat what they want, if the ratio is not to their liking.

Some days, my ducks have a voracious appetite, and some days they seem to barely touch the food—but this seems to have nothing to do with crumbles vs pellets.

Either way, they don't lay. The pellets are about 6 months old, and I don't remember the brand but it's some kind of all-flock commercial feed. The crumbles are Flock Party brand, from Tractor Supply.

The lady who gave me the birds said she took her birds off commercial feed because they stopped laying all of a sudden. I have read many other anecdotes to this effect online (not here) so I thought I would poll all of you to ask if you recently noticed a problem with egg production, related to the brand of feed you use.

Beyond that, I'm just looking for some insight into why these birds aren't laying. It's possible that the Khaki's just aren't quite old enough, and will start laying soon. But the fact that I had eggs to start, and now have none, makes me wonder if I'm doing something wrong. Anyway, thanks for reading.

 

[nuthatched]

The Lady of the TSC and the previous owner are wrong about how to feed ducks and about feed in general. There are lots of threads of the feed 'crisis', if you want to read them.
Can you get them duck food?
Birds do not like change and will not lay until they feel safe, the early eggs were likely in the works.

 

[Painted Calls]

The Lady of the TSC and the previous owner are wrong about how to feed ducks and about feed in general. There are lots of threads of the feed 'crisis', if you want to read them.
Can you get them duck food?
Birds do not like change and will not lay until they feel safe, the early eggs were likely in the works.

X 2

Birds will stop laying when stressed. If they are new layers, sporadic laying is normal.

I feed Purina Duck pellets and have had zero issues.

 

[HollowOfWisps]

To get a job at tractor supply is pretty much the same criteria for McDonald’s. You do not have to have any knowledge regarding livestock to be hired. Some of the worst poultry raising advice I have ever heard came from tractor supply employees and the terrible part is people assume that they are more knowledgeable because they work there. Your ducks are stressed, in a new environment, new layers, are most likely nutritionally deficient from their terrible diet before and seem to show signs of health issues. That is a recipe for no eggs. If these were my ducks and since you buy from tractor supply I would put them on a good protein Purina feed, dose them a few times on poultry supplement like poultry cell or rooster booster and offer no treats/extras until they get back up to good health. You really can’t go wrong for purina for ducks as their chick starter, flock raiser and duck pellets all have the same niacin content.

 

[publicradio]

Thanks to all for the replies, and sorry for the slow follow up. You're right, there are quite a few threads about the feed crisis, and I just didn't look hard enough. I could probably rule this out because a) my feed was purchased early last November, which seems to just pre-date the phenomenon so many flock owners have described with their birds not laying.

I will go out and get them feed that is explicitly for ducks, not ducks and chickens. What do you all think about grinding eggshells into the feed? I have done this on occasion, with past flocks, and they seemed to tolerate it fine but I don't remember any increase in production (frankly, healthy khakis are already at the upper limit of 1 egg per day, per bird, and this is what my previous birds generally laid).

Other than that, I suppose I can throw them some mealworms and peas until I can get their new feed. I also have nutritional yeast I could shake into their food. I even mixed a cup of diatemacious earth into their feed one day, to try to deworm them just in case they have worms. I suppose I could do this again but I don't know how much and how long is required to do the trick. I have a ton of food-grade DE that I never use.

Beyond that, any recommendations are much appreciated.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I have food grade DE only thing it's really good for is keeping feed fresh I buy 200 lb of feed at a time usually and I put them into metal trash cans so I put DE and mix it up to keep the feed fresh. Don't think it's a very good wormer.
But the Nutritional yeast and crushed egg shells are a good additive, Mmealworms and peas are always a healthy treat.