My Love Affair With Ducks...

[Enten4life]

I realized I've been away from this thread for a while! My younger ducks have begun to lay now (or at least ONE of them, the other may be our Norbie-Girl thats' been on a lay hiatus for a few months).

I've been mixing OS in with their All Flock, but one of the eggs seemed pretty thin relatively speaking. But we finally have eggs again since November. The young Chickens are 20 weeks now so I assume they will be okay if they eat some of the OS?

Anyhoo, weather has been a real mess here with SUPER high winds and heat. Poor birdies are scared. I Just want to hold them.... But only one allows me to, lol.

 

[shawluvsbirds]

I realized I've been away from this thread for a while! My younger ducks have begun to lay now (or at least ONE of them, the other may be our Norbie-Girl thats' been on a lay hiatus for a few months).

I've been mixing OS in with their All Flock, but one of the eggs seemed pretty thin relatively speaking. But we finally have eggs again since November. The young Chickens are 20 weeks now so I assume they will be okay if they eat some of the OS?

Anyhoo, weather has been a real mess here with SUPER high winds and heat. Poor birdies are scared. I Just want to hold them.... But only one allows me to, lol.

You shouldn't need to mix the oyster shell with the all flock.
Offer it free choice in a dish on the side.

 

[Mimi13]

Like Shaw said, just put the OS in another, separate dish/feeder somewhere close to your feeders. The birds that need it will eat it, when they need it.

I have separate OS in my ducks’ house, but I can’t really notice that they eat much of it. And like you said about your duck egg shells, mine don’t seem as thick as they should either. I mean, not in comparison to my chicken eggs anyway. They don’t crack easily or anything like that, but when I do crack them, the shells seem thin and the membrane is tough as nails. Maybe it’s just my birds IDK.

 

[Enten4life]

When I gave them a separate OS bowl..., my ducks ATE THE WHOLE BOWL of it in minutes. They were fiends.

Like Shaw said, just put the OS in another, separate dish/feeder somewhere close to your feeders. The birds that need it will eat it, when they need it.

I have separate OS in my ducks’ house, but I can’t really notice that they eat much of it. And like you said about your duck egg shells, mine don’t seem as thick as they should either. I mean, not in comparison to my chicken eggs anyway. They don’t crack easily or anything like that, but when I do crack them, the shells seem thin and the membrane is tough as nails. Maybe it’s just my birds IDK.

 

[Mimi13]

When I gave them a separate OS bowl..., my ducks ATE THE WHOLE BOWL of it in minutes. They were fiends.

I have noticed they’re pigs!

 

[Mimi13]

Just a few minutes ago I was sitting inside eating leftover pizza and watching the ducks right outside on the deck. I noticed they were gathered by the water tub and Petey was acting kind of strange. She had something in her mouth and then spit it out and began shaking her head. I ran out there only to find an egg had been laid, no shell present and what Petey had in her mouth was the membrane. The ducks were staring at the yolk laying on the deck, and my Naked Neck was eyeballing it as well. I grabbed up the membrane to look at since it was the only real identifying part, other than a very large yolk sitting up high. I deduced it was for sure a duck egg, but whose?

Three of my four girls have continued laying every single day since the beginning of August, no days off like the chickens. Only my tiny Hershey, the Indian Runner, stopped laying a few months ago. So, the $100,000 question is: whose egg was that? I gathered the three regular eggs this morning, so was it Hershey’s, being shell-less and getting back on track? Or could it have been one of the regularly laying girl’s laying a snafu egg? It hasn’t happened before, to my knowledge, so who knows.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I just have a 4" PVC pipe with two elbows mounted to one of the poles in the run and everybody, including the drakes(!), eat as much as they like of it.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Just a few minutes ago I was sitting inside eating leftover pizza and watching the ducks right outside on the deck. I noticed they were gathered by the water tub and Petey was acting kind of strange. She had something in her mouth and then spit it out and began shaking her head. I ran out there only to find an egg had been laid, no shell present and what Petey had in her mouth was the membrane. The ducks were staring at the yolk laying on the deck, and my Naked Neck was eyeballing it as well. I grabbed up the membrane to look at since it was the only real identifying part, other than a very large yolk sitting up high. I deduced it was for sure a duck egg, but whose?

Three of my four girls have continued laying every single day since the beginning of August, no days off like the chickens. Only my tiny Hershey, the Indian Runner, stopped laying a few months ago. So, the $100,000 question is: whose egg was that? I gathered the three regular eggs this morning, so was it Hershey’s, being shell-less and getting back on track? Or could it have been one of the regularly laying girl’s laying a snafu egg? It hasn’t happened before, to my knowledge, so who knows.

Don't worry about it, that happens here all the time during the cold season. The cold is throwing wrenches into their egg producing system. - They have access to Oyster-Shells, do they?

 

[Mimi13]

Don't worry about it, that happens here all the time during the cold season. The cold is throwing wrenches into their egg producing system. - They have access to Oyster-Shells, do they?

Yes, they do have access.

 

[Enten4life]

My Norbie-Girl lays shell-less eggs from time to time. I know they do it when they are stressed or get scared too.

I was only concerned if TOO much OS was a thign to be worried about.