Muscovy duck not laying - any tips?

[SkyBlueJar]

So it's mid-June already. My muscovy duck & drake are almost a year old now. I've got them in a large fenced pen with a repurposed henhouse as their ducky digs. It has soft pine shavings as bedding and I can see that the ducks sleep in there. The drake is doing his husbandly duties, but the duck hasn't laid an egg.

Is there anything I can do to encourage them? They seem to enjoy one another's company, so I don't think it's a compatability issue (although she does run fast when he feels amorous - but he usually catches up with her). I thought muscovies LOVE raising ducklings. Am I missing something?

 

[CochinBrahmaLover]

Muscovies love raising when ducklings when they're broody, but that has little to do with eggs.

Perhaps she's hiding them? I had a duck who was very good at hiding her eggs.

 

[SkyBlueJar]

Well, I have checked under the bedding in the duck house, and also everywhere else in the fenced run. She is missing some feathers from her breast area, but those feathers are just floating around the pen. She hasn't built a nest. There's nowhere she can hide eggs where I wouldn't see them.

I thought they go broody when the weather turns warm? We've had warm weather for at least 2 months now.

 

[Going Quackers]

They can go broody but again, nothing is written in stone, if she's penned then you should be able to locate a hidden nest, so next thing would be predators? could something be eating her eggs? Has she ever laid? mine did resume later this year than years past probably due to that "wonderful" weather we had this past winter.

Diet? how is she otherwise? health concerns can cause laying problems, like parasites etc.

 

[SkyBlueJar]

Good ideas. The pen and house are secure from the predators we have in this area. She has never laid before.

Their feathers look good, but I can't get close enough to the ducks to see if they have any trouble with mites.

What would you recommend for internal parasites? I haven't seen any evidence in their droppings, but then again a bird could have plenty of worms without passing any.

 

[Going Quackers]

She's never laid, how long have you had her? i generally don't worm my ducks unless i see something, so i would have to defer to others on something they would use. If the feathers look good, probably no external issues.

Definitely, a mystery... any pictures? please don't take this the wrong way but your sure it's a female, right? i don't mean to be flippant, but not ever laying is odd.. i have buckets of eggs.. i could build a house with them lol

 

[SkyBlueJar]

LOL! No, that's a great question. These are my first muscovies; I've only ever kept chickens before.

They were 3 months old last October when I bought them from a local farmer (who raised his flock on pasture).

 

[SkyBlueJar]

Is the picture link working? The black duck is a female, right? You can see that the red skin on her face is smaller and much smoother than the white duck's.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Is the picture link working? The black duck is a female, right?

2 drakes.

 

[SkyBlueJar]

For sure? The white one has the classic heavy carunkles and constantly mates with the black duck. While the black duck has smaller, non-wrinkled carunkles, a slightly lighter build, and never climbs on the white duck's back. They're the same age and the breeder identified them as male and female (at 3-4 months of age, so they were just starting to get carunkles at the time).

But neither of them ever vocalizes. They only pant. How likely is it that my female is actually an unusually-low-testosterone drake?