Fertility Rate of First Year Ducks

[pirtykitty]

My pair of Welsh harlequins ( metzers) will be a year old May 18... I was wondering how they will be with the egg fertility rate.

 

[duckyfromoz]

My young runner have just come into lay - So far of the eggs I have placed into the incubator 25 of the 26 were fertile- The only one so far that wasnt was the very first egg laid. My runners are all only around 6 months old.

 

[Brickman House]

I have Rouens, Pekins, Cayugas and Blue Swedes, all of whom are a year old in June.

They started laying in February, and I set my first batch of eggs from them on March 1. 17 out of 18 developed, and 15 hatched.

So at least in my experience, ducks the same age as yours are definitely fertile.

 

[pirtykitty]

Daisy had 13 eggs layed from April 17 to May 2.. the 29 and 30 th of may she didn't lay an egg... I also had 5 wooden eggs in there also from trading them for fresh.. No signs of wanting to set on them. I pulled them all Sunday exept for the may 2 . The freshest ones I baked into a pound cake and the old ones I scrambed for the cats and dog.. of the 6 or so older ones only maybe two showed signs of development just a few red lines.. the other 4 were not. I also had to remove because the wooden eggs were causing them to get cracked... Maybe later in the season..
She did show signs of wanting to go broody back the end March, first of april.. So maybe she will later in season...

 

[Brickman House]

Well, whether the eggs are fertile, and whether she will go broody are two COMPLETELY different questions. I have ducks laying plenty of fertile eggs (now and in the past), but I have never had a broody duck. Oddly enough, broodiness has absolutely nothing to do with fertility, in either chickens or ducks. You can have a broody hen that's never seen a rooster, and hens pumping out fertile eggs day after day that never show an ounce of inclination to actually sit on them.

Obviously, your eggs that showed development were fertile, but don't discount fertility on the ones that didn't. It may be that they just didn't get consistent enough heat and humidity to start developing.

The only real way to tell if an egg is fertile is to crack it open when it's freshly laid and look for the bullseye (old or partially incubated eggs can undergo changes in consistency that make it hard to see the bullseye) or incubate it (in an artificial incubator or reliably broody hen) and see if it develops.

 

[TennesseeTruly]

Fertility is sky high here with my first year layers. I have Pekins and Runners. Only the first couple of eggs weren't fertile.

Laurie