Keeping Duck Eggs Clean?!?! Anyway possible?

[Dances with Ducks]

Yes i know, but im not building savy and cant get anyone aorund here to help me to save anyones life. unless of course I wait about a year while continuely nagging them. So I make due with what I have. Hopefully after selling a few dozen of eggs and after the next swap ill be saved enough to get a guy that helped my cousin build her pen to builb me a new chicken pen with a small nest house for the ducks
I have no building savy either and my husband has done so much I don't want to ask him to now add a nest box after he spent so much time with his not too savy building skills makinga new duck house. I just put a wide board accross one end of the house and firmly braced it against the frame with some scraps of 2x4s, then filled this area with clean straw. I bought a package of wooden eggs and had it sitting in this "nest box" before anyone started laying this season. When the first hen started laying she put her egg next to the wooden ones from day one! It's so clean!!! I'm still waiting for the other five to start though, we shall see what happens then.
But some people have just used plastic bins for their nest boxes. It doesn't have to be anything special. It seems to me the higher it is the less likely they will poop in it. Just so long as you see it is low enough so they can get to it. I worried mine was up too high because they weren't pooping in it, until I saw they were getting in and moving around the wooden eggs. They love those things, they're like little baby dolls to them!!

 

[Dances with Ducks]

Well the second duck started laying and she has NO interest in the nest box. Her eggs are rolling around in the main part of the duck house every morning and once one even got broken. They are not clean eggs at all!!
Over in the other duck house no one is laying yet, but the ducks interest in the wooden eggs has changed from moving them around to aiming their poop at them!!

I wonder if they want to lay eggs by them but since they don't have eggs to lay yet they let loose something else. Sigh . . .

 

[Brickman House]

My ducks do their best to bury, step on, roll around, shoot hoops with, Every. Single. Egg. They. Lay. I can completely strip the duck house and put in all fresh pine shavings, and the next day's eggs will still be filthy. It's just a habit that I've accepted I'll never break them of, and that I will never have clean eggs.

The good news is, I just candled 18 eggs at Day 5 of my first hatch, and all but one are developing exactly as they should. You can check back with me in 3 weeks or so, but thus far, as far as I can tell, rinsing the eggs off with warm water to set them hasn't affected them one bit. Also, in the Incubating forum, there's a thread from a poster who washed half her eggs prior to setting, and left the other half unwashed, and it made no difference in the success of her hatch. She's planning to run the same experiment over several more hatches, but preliminarily, it appears to make no difference.

I would just explain the situation to your hatching customer, and ask if they want you to wash the eggs or not.

 

[Dances with Ducks]

So as soon as I say one thing the ducks do another! This morning both hens laid in the little nest the first one had made in the nest box with the wooden eggs. Both eggs were so pristine!! And in the other duck house no poop on the wooden eggs! (Just what you wanted to know about right?) They just played with them and lined them up in a row. I will now attempt to refrain from obscessive reporting on this anymore.

 

[Nikosbirds]

I've been reading this thread because I had the same question.

In response to this I wanted to offer a bit of (unsolicited,lol) advice:

"Yes i know, but im not building savy and cant get anyone aorund here to help me to save anyones life. unless of course I wait about a year while continuely nagging them. So I make due with what I have. Hopefully after selling a few dozen of eggs and after the next swap ill be saved enough to get a guy that helped my cousin build her pen to builb me a new chicken pen with a small nest house for the ducks."

I just wanted to say that I used to feel the same way. However, out of desperation, I was forced to learn how to do some simple construction. It's amazing what you can learn by watching YouTube videos... Anyway, I would strongly encourage you to learn how to build some simple things, assuming you are physically able. It can be very empowering! In fact, nesting boxes are a great start!

I suggest looking online for a building materials salvage store near you. This and the dump, and the side of the road, and freecycle...are all good sources of free or cheap lumber. Then try local lumber suppliers. Let them know what you are building so they can suggest materials. Home Depot or Lowe's is always my last resort. You can often borrow tools you need, but I find that I use my drill and hand saw/ saw horses frequently enough to warrant owning my own.

Good luck!