Help identifying eggs

[Matt Hendershott]

Hello all,

I have 12 Rhode Island red Hens and a mallard hen.

We are now seeing between 8 and 11 eggs daily in the coop nesting boxs. The Mallard hen will not generally go inside the coop but stays in the run. So I put a larger box in the run for her. And the last week or so I have been finding almost white eggs and I cant figure out if it is a chicken or ducks eggs. I had two one night out in the run that did not have shells and were large. But have not had one since and the last two days there have been white eggs outside of the box in the run. Any idea if I want to believe these are duck eggs but I cant be sure as they look very pale but not tinted like I read duck eggs should/would be.

The regular eggs that are always in the nesting boxs are brown. What do you think? And how could I tell? I had thought about locking the chickens in the coop but 3-4 of them purch outside in the run nightly since its been warm out.

 

[rjohns39]

The white eggs are duck eggs. Once she is up to speed, her eggs will be larger and likely longer (or elongated) than a hen. And you've already discovered that ducks will leave their eggs wherever they are when they feel like dropping them. My ducks go into a shelter at night, and I try to keep them there (lots of fresh, clean, dry straw on the floor) until about 9:00 AM, when I let them out in the morning, most of the eggs will be in a single nest somewhere in the straw. My rouens lay white and slightly tinted blue or green eggs.