Egg laying cycle - mallard

[schrammie]

Hi all! Long time lurker (and advice searcher), only second time poster.

I have an about 1 year old female mallard who’s been laying eggs for some time now.
She had no issues up until late April or so, where she had a bout of soft shelled eggs (a few days in a row). Our vet suggested calcium pills, which we gave until she laid a good egg (she did a day or two later).

All was well until yesterday, I found a soft shelled egg in her pool. Gave calcium again, and this morning there was a nice regular egg in her crate. Sometime in the afternoon, she passed another soft egg - this was very strange to me as she’s never laid more than one egg a day. She’s acting totally normal and her belly doesn’t feel watery or balloon-y.

Any advice from anyone would be much appreciated! Especially if you’ve had this issue before. Oh, we feed Mazuri waterfowl maintenance and free feed oyster shell.

 

[Isaac 0]

Absolute no chance the egg was laid by another duck?
The process of egg development and laying generally is around 24 hours. Soft-shelled eggs generally are harder to lay for a bird since they don't correspond well to their muscle movements in an attempt to expel them. Due to that, the egg may have been in the oviduct longer than it should have, while another was able to develop at that time, which could have caused her to lay two eggs in a day.
That would be my guess as far as why you saw that, but I could certainly be wrong.
In any case, it would be best to keep her on a calcium supplement for the next few days until you start seeing normal eggs again.

 

[schrammie]

Absolute no chance the egg was laid by another duck?
The process of egg development and laying generally is around 24 hours. Soft-shelled eggs generally are harder to lay for a bird since they don't correspond well to their muscle movements in an attempt to expel them. Due to that, the egg may have been in the oviduct longer than it should have, while another was able to develop at that time, which could have caused her to lay two eggs in a day.
That would be my guess as far as why you saw that, but I could certainly be wrong.
In any case, it would be best to keep her on a calcium supplement for the next few days until you start seeing normal eggs again.

thank you for your help! Our only other duck is male so not from him. But I’m wondering if I missed it the day before, although rather sure I checked. We are continuing w the calcium supplement and extra grit until we see a good egg. Today she didn’t pass anything but is acting completely herself, but still may get her in to our avian vet this weekend. I was glad she was at least passing something, but with nothing today it worries me a tad.