How did Day 21 duck eggs get removed from the nest and scattered around the yard?

[splitdriedfruits]

It’s my first time with hatching eggs. We started with 11 fertile eggs at first candling, but now only 4 is left. I’m worried they are either already dead from whatever creature jostled them arose the yard, or they will get stolen before they hatch! Help!

My 3 ducks usually free range in the fenced backyard during the day. The mother duck’s nest is inside the coop, but I leave the coop door open so she can take breaks and join the others for a quick swim in the kiddie pool.

Yesterday around dusk, I discovered that only 1 egg was left in the nest! I found the 3 remaining eggs scattered in different areas of the yard. Cold. How did this happen?!

The dog stole one egg and ate it a few days ago, so I’ve kept him locked up since. There’s a raccoon that comes for the garbage bin, but it always comes really late, well past midnight. I also don’t see why a raccoon would drop all the eggs in different spots in the yard.

My other duck, a jumbo Pekin, has eaten eggs before. If she manages to find an egg with a weak shell, she will happily eat her own eggs. During this hatching process, there were 3 previous eggs that somehow disappeared overnight when the ducks are locked in the coop. The only explanation is that the jumbo pekin ate them. The disappeared ones happened to be the ones with hairline fractures. Would the broody duck push these fractured (but otherwise healthy and developing) eggs out of her nest? Could the jumbo pekin actually steal eggs straight from under the mama and break them open to eat?? Wouldn’t the mama defend her nest?

I find it hard to believe that my jumbo pekin (who laid most of the eggs that my Welsh Harlequin is sitting on) would push all the eggs out of the nest and across a decent sized yard If she is the culprit, I am locking her in a dog crate for the next few weeks!

It might also be safer if I kept the coop door closed, but is it okay that the mama duck won’t be able to leave the coop for swimming/bathing? My coop isn’t huge.

I don’t know if this has happened to anyone before. I’m so sad because at this point the eggs are pretty far along.

 

[Debbie292d]

I don’t know if this has happened to anyone before. I’m so sad because at this point the eggs are pretty far along.

See the chicken in my avi? His egg was smashed and cold for several hours. He took 3 more days to hatch than the rest of them, so there's hope there.

You have a duck, a dog, and a raccoon, all who eat eggs. If you've isolated the first two of them, I'd assume no more should disappear, but is your coop secure so that raccoon or other varments can't get in there? Raccoons are famous for stealing eggs, so that's my guess on those in the yard.

 

[splitdriedfruits]

We figure out the culprit. Someone had accidentally let the dog loose in the yard for 15 minutes!

Of the 4 eggs left, I only see movement and veins in 1 of them. Does this mean the rest died from being rolled around too much? Or could their bodies just be taking up so much space in the egg that you can’t see veins from candling anymore? It’s day 22.

Egg #4 has a weird transparent spot in the middle of the egg where the light shines through. But she’ll is intact. Egg #6 has a weirdly shaped air gap, and the shell looks splotchy with black and blue tints in daylight. Egg #2 has two dark spots right on the rim of the air gap. Anyone know what these mean?

I don’t know if I should be holding onto hope or prepare myself for a totally failed hatch experience.