Eggsasperating

[spiritbrook]

OY, I never thought it would come to this, but oy...

First, there was Betsy. Betsy is a Khaki Campbell duck who has laid all but a dozen days since she started laying. That's about 285 days now. Recently Sera, Betsy and Mikey's daughter, started laying. Because of flock dynamics we had to separate Betsy and Mikey a short time after Sera started laying. Prior to that I judged the single egg days based on appearance. Betsy's were always perfectly shaped, Sera's were often smaller and kinda pointy on both ends. Sometimes Sera laid her eggs in the nest hole full of straw and chips, but most of the time just any ol' place in the ducks night pen where she felt like placing it. Then she discovered the hummocks of tall grass in the duck yard were pretty nice to hide under to leave eggs. So she started waiting, and complaining if she didn't get out when she wanted, to place her eggs there. Sometimes the eggs still had pointiness, but they were a lot larger than others. Those have turned out to be doubles - those that we have opened. Then... those bigger eggs started looking like normal eggs, nice shape, nice color, but bigger. I have no clue if they are doubles. I tried candling them, but am not sure I am seeing one yolk, let alone two. Enter into the picture Maggie. Maggie is a buff goose who is now nearly 14 weeks old. I figure she is about a month away from starting to lay herself. Sera started at 16 weeks and Betsy started at 20 weeks. Soo... Although I haven't SEEN any sign of a goose searching for a place to lay... Those are LARGE eggs I am finding on some days. I've never found the large ones in the duck's night pen... And someone started using the tire that is full of straw and shavings as an egg depository... Sera was totally put off by it when I made it, even though I stuck it over one of her favorite dirt-hole egg spots.

How do I tell if the eggs are doubles and thus larger? I don't want to open a bunch when I don't need them. The two I did use were both pointy on both ends and doubles, but now I wonder that they were not THIS big. Maybe the silly goose has been laying since the first of the month and those are her double eggs? So far I have not had two eggs in one day, a sure way to know if both the duck and goose are both laying... This is so eggsasperating...

Here's the line up:

​

Serama Bantam
Sera
(KC)

Betsy
(KC)
Double? Double? Goose?​

Betsy (KC)
Double ?
(real pointy)
Double ? Goose ?
​

 

[purslanegarden]

I read that eggs with double yokes will have a slight bump in their egg form, which is because of the extra yolk.

 

[spiritbrook]

OK, I found a picture on the web. Goose eggs are supposed to be a lot bigger than duck eggs. That means these are simply large duck eggs, most likely double yokes. So I have to wait another month or so to find out if my Maggie goose is a girl or a boy. She had been sexed when I got her but the particular sales person didn't know if the mark on her head meant she was a she or a he... I found out a couple months later that they were sexing the geese as they came into the store and marking them, but I never found out if the mark meant boy or girl.

I also saw Sera duck jump into the tire to leave me an egg, and the next day do the same but not leave an egg. Someday I will consistently get clean eggs from that girl. Her mom Betsy has gone broody. I have so many eggs, some of them months old, I just decided that if she wanted to keep the eggs she could. Who would think that two ducks would make so many eggs I can't give them all away, let alone the one duck before the second started laying.

 

[cayugaducklady]

One of my cayugas has laid double yolkers. They were the size of goose eggs and smooth eggshell on the outside. This particular hen didn't start laying double yolkers until she started winding down production for her first molt.

The first picture compares one of her double yolkers to a normal duck egg laid on the same day.

The second pic is her very first double yolker.

The last pic compares the first double yolker to the rest of eggs laid that week (please ignore the dog medicine bottles in the background).

 

[spiritbrook]

Wow. Wish we had a goose egg to compare... Silly duck anyway, I don't mind if she lays regular eggs, really.

 

[cayugaducklady]

I feed my extra eggs back to the ducks. They love the cooked shells and my non-layers like to eat the yolk.

If you have other pets cooked eggs are good for them. My weirdo dogs don't like eggs.

I've been reading that you can also use them as plant fertilizer when you repot plants. I don't know if you use them raw or cooked.