Is my Muscovy drake taking and killing my fertilised duck eggs or is it a snake?

[Brooke parker]

I have a male and female Muscovy duck. The female had 17 eggs and she has been sitting on them for about 3-4 weeks. I recently went out to their pen and found a hollow duck egg but also noticed about a 9ft carpet python snake skin. Each night since then there has been one egg each morning that is cracked open and eaten.

I have been suspecting that the snake keeps getting in the pen and night or early morning however, I have patched all the holes where he could be getting in.

I have noticed that since patching any holes the ?snake? Has been only half eating the eggs and then leaving. Because there is no way I can think this snake is getting in, I’m starting to think that my drake has started to take the eggs from the nest.

Any thoughts?

 

[KathiQuacks]

I’ve no experience with snakes or drakes stealing eggs, but I would think that a snake would swallow the eggs whole, no? And probably not eat that frequently either?

Personally, I would just set up a camera over night to really see what’s going on.

 

[Psychofeatherlover]

Sounds like a rat, skunk, or maybe possum. When we have snakes getting them, they take the whole egg. But the 3 I mentioned above, bust em open and eat the insides only. If a 9 foot snake was getting them, I'm sure it would eat more than one. It may be either trying to get the adult birds, or waiting for babies to hatch, but I'd think the babies would be just a little snack. We have had a Muscovy hen killed by a 4 to 5 foot black racer. We only know it was a snake because her head and neck were wet. She was too big for the snake to swallow so it spit her back out. Hope all the babies hatched and everybody is doing good. I don't know about your Muscovy momma's, lol but ours are super protective and will beat up and cuss out anything or anybody that looks at her babies. One, Lillie, tried to either black my eye or break my face. Not sure which. But she tried hard.