NEED MY DUCKS TO LAY EGGS

[AnconaDuckFarm]

Hi, can I ask what state you live in? I'm in Michigan and I raise Ancona ducks. With yours being still young and hadn't begun laying before the shorter daylight hours, artificial lighting might not work to get them to start. Once the ducks are at least a year old going into the next winter, they will be more likely to lay eggs more often. But just like the other posts stated, ducks don't lay consistent. Even when the young females do begin to lay eggs, the eggs will be very small for a couple months. They won't be big enough for hatching purposes and you won't get top pay if you sell them for eating. This process takes much patience and the love of ducks!

 

[hfchristy]

We had lights on our ducks for a solid month this year before they decided to start laying, so it could still happen. Actually, only 2 of the 4 girls are laying, but one has always been a bit gimpy and an unreliable layer, and the last one just does her own thing in all regards.
Did you just set the lights once and leave them at a steady day length? Morning or evening or both? Now that solstice has passed, daylight is working with you, but in the fall, if you only have artificial light at one end of the day or the other, their overall day length is still decreasing as the natural light decreases. We put the light on morning and evening, and added a half hour a week until they started laying. (Then promptly let the light burn out. Ugh.)
I've also noticed that egg laying often starts for us when there is a spell of "spring like" weather. They also tend to engage in, um, spring-like behavior, then, too. I know you don't need a male to have eggs, but I do wonder whether going through the motions of mating, even if it's just the girls, stimulates things. Or maybe it's just a side-effect of the hormones that cause egg-laying. But either way, believing that it's spring seems to be part of getting the egg-laying to kick into gear. The weather this coming week looks really promising for that!

Christy

 

[blkjak]

I agree Christy. Its been a very warm Dec here. Last year we had 4 feet of snow and -25. It is 0 in Manitoba and the ducks think its spring doing all sorts of spring activities. Laying eggs, eating all the green grass they can find, fertilizing those eggs and trying to set a clutch. I found 2 clutches yesterday of eggs. Crazy ducks!