Mandarin ducks cracking their eggs!!

[Climax]

Thank you for sharing your experiences. The first "batch" my ducks laid all ended up having those tiny lightening bolt looking cracks throughout. As I earlier stated none hatched except one , one I had to assist as it was completely shrink wrapped and still hadn't absorbed the yolk. It was seemingly healthy and vivacious until the 3rd day. I noticed it just wasn't as spunky as usual and then it dawned on me..."has this duckling eaten?" I had it with little bantam chicks that hatched around the same time so I figured they'd teach him. Well I thought wrong. It died later that night. I guess something else could have been wrong with it too but the same thing happened with the 3 I just recently hatched. I noticed the day after they hatched they still weren't eating or drinking, same scenario...little chicks in with them. The end of the 2nd day I still hadn't witnessed them drink or eat yet. So enough was enough... I decided to put them in with my cayuga ducklings that were born almost 2 weeks prior..they are double their size so I was a bit weary. I made what I call my "save a chick superfood" which is a higher protein crumble that I mix with infant pediasure, hard boiled egg, tablespoon of yogurt and a teaspoon of polyvisol drops. I let the ducklings get acquainted first. Mandies went right over to the cayugas and tried nestling up underneath them, lol. Then I put the shallow dish of food in and all of them devoured it within minutes. Well...except one mandy... it started to act just like the other one that died..and ended the same way. But the 2 remaining are doing absolutely wonderful.

You mentioned something that I've been trying to find an answer to for literally months!! You found eggs on the ground? We have been baffled on how the heck we keep finding broken eggs throughout their enclosure. We first thought some kind of rodent like a rat was getting into their boxes. But it didn't make sense how a rat would get it up and out of the box. Then we thought some kind of native to us bird like a barn swallows or starlings. The eggs always had a hole in it so we figured the birds would wait til our ducks went for a quick dip in the pool and then sneak in and fly out with the egg. I don't know, it may sound silly but we couldn't figure out what or how it was happening. Most of the eggs we found were right underneath their box and some were not developed at all as others looked to be completely normal and still developing eggs. 1 or 2 were rotten and gross, and a handful had the contents of the egg completely gone..like nothing left except the shell...so something clearly ate it. So I guess my question is... do these ducks drop their own (or other ducks) eggs out? How??? We did actually think maybe it was them at first, but same thing with the rat...how would they get it up and out ? I'm so fascinated by this now. Ironically today I was in the grassy part of their pen, away from where they nest and lo and behold .. I found an egg!! I bent down to pick it up and sadly it was cracked on the top and bloody. I peeled some of the top egg off to see what was going on with it.. and I could see it still moving The eggs she is sitting on have another 8 days to go..so there was no saving that lil duckling. But again..Can't figure out why it was there in the first place! About 10 feet or more away from where the nest boxes are. And why kick out a growing still developing egg?? I just don't get it. I'm pretty close to investing in some cameras to put out there!

Yeah it baffled me at first, but I am 100% sure that it is either the setting hen getting them out or another one of the ducks, as it happens to me all of the time and my pen is not able to be entered by any other creatures. and the contents that are eaten from the eggs is the duck, they eat it because they are lacking vital nutrients that they need. Kinda like with pigs how they will eat some of their piglets if they aren't getting what they need. Also I seen you mention that you put yogurt in your super chick saver food, but the thing is, most yogurt contains lactose and birds cannot digest lactose as they are not evolved to do so. So if the yogurt that you use contains lactose then I suggest you use something else instead of the yogurt as it can actually kill them.

But if you do end up getting some footage of how the mandarins push the eggs out, it would be pretty fascinating to see. They must be VERY good at balancing stuff on their beaks, or they make the hole in the eggs first then put their foot in it? I can't even imagine lol.