I HAVE A COUPLE MUSCOVY DUCK QUESTIONS

[jen61871]

Hi. I am going to incubate a few of my muscovy duck eggs but this will be my first for ducks and I see they are a little different in their incubating.
I would love any advice and some help with my questions.
My chickens and ducks free range but my ducks almost never (in warmer weather) even sleep in the coop at night and they rarely lay in the coop which is a real joy on 6 acres of land + 4 of the 7 ducks can literally fly pretty high and far. So my 2 questions/problems? are 1.they lay where ever they feel like it though they are getting better about in the same spots for longer peroids of time but they are almost always dirty-very. like mud dirt. And everywhere I read it says to use clean eggs. I'm at a loss as to what to do???? I would love advice.
2. Our ducks are not quite a year and I have not actually even seen any mating going on yet. Do they do this at night? Or are ducks slower maturing sexually? I HAVE seen my drake grab at my hens in a mating gesture but of course they run off. So at this point I don't even know if the eggs are even fertile.
Thanks so much in advance!
Jen

 

[Squishychicken]

Crack and egg open to see if it's fertile.

The ducks are most likely mating when you arnt around. Unless you have a pair of binoculars and spy in them 24/7 there's a chance they could be without you seeing.

Catch the ducks at night when they are half asleep, and lock them in the chicken run leave them in there for a while (a week or so) so they can be taught to lay in the nesting boxes again. Or so you can get the eggs from the desirable hens and get the freshest, cleanest and easier to collect eggs.Keep the nesting boxes clean and you should have no dirty egg issiues.