Hello All, apologies in advance if this is redundant, but I've searched and this is my 1st year keeping ducks.
One of my ducks has been laying sort of strangely. I free range and feed 16% protein Duck Feed and offer Oyster Shell too. I've found eggs that look like soft serve ice cream cones, they were weak at that area. Then some shells were just plain weak. Then some only had the membrane, and finally I started noticing eggs at odd times, like late afternoon. Then two days ago I found 2 eggs with zero shells. So today I decided that it was necessary for me to visually check my 7 laying ducks. They all appeared pretty much the same, however, a Rouen, 8mos old did have 2 very very tiny shell fragments in the vent. It also appeared to me like the tissues were wetter and perhaps a little swollen. No obvious unusual odor. No hard abdomen or anything obvious other than that ducks vent appeared "different" from the other vents.
Now behaviorally, all seems fine, except that I have observed one other Rouen Duck has been mounting the Rouen in question here. I did have a large Pekin Drake but he is now seperate from the flock. Any advice from the Experts? Thank you all very much. Please have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
One of my ducks has been laying sort of strangely. I free range and feed 16% protein Duck Feed and offer Oyster Shell too. I've found eggs that look like soft serve ice cream cones, they were weak at that area. Then some shells were just plain weak. Then some only had the membrane, and finally I started noticing eggs at odd times, like late afternoon. Then two days ago I found 2 eggs with zero shells. So today I decided that it was necessary for me to visually check my 7 laying ducks. They all appeared pretty much the same, however, a Rouen, 8mos old did have 2 very very tiny shell fragments in the vent. It also appeared to me like the tissues were wetter and perhaps a little swollen. No obvious unusual odor. No hard abdomen or anything obvious other than that ducks vent appeared "different" from the other vents.
Now behaviorally, all seems fine, except that I have observed one other Rouen Duck has been mounting the Rouen in question here. I did have a large Pekin Drake but he is now seperate from the flock. Any advice from the Experts? Thank you all very much. Please have a wonderful Thanksgiving.