New to egg laying

[Nancyfaye]

I have had my Pekin for 5 months, and our routine is, at night, I put her in a 28x42 kennel, for protection. She has a metal quart water bucket that hooks to the side. Normally, there is about half the water missing in the morning, and dry bedding. Yesterday she laid her first egg, sometime during the night, and here is my question: why and how was her water bucket completely empty, and her bedding completely soaked? The bucket was still firmly attached. Today, was a repeat of yesterday...the egg, laying in a 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 foot square of soaking wet bedding, and an empty water bucket. Do they expel liquid when they lay, and then get really thirsty? Or is she spitting mouthfuls of water--ha! I am mystified. Hope someone can explain it to me.

 

[3bird]

Congrats on your first egg!

I'm not sure why this coincided with the egg laying, but water inside a duckhouse/coop usually means a mess. We never offer food or water in the duckhouse for this reason. We have an attached, covered, predator-proof run to which they have 24/7 access 99% of the time. So, we keep their food and water in the run. We use a five-gallon bucket, and that part of the run had pavers.

As you probably know, ducks need to be able to dunk their heads, and, of course, they love playing in water, so it's pretty normal for it to be wet around their water.

 

[416bigbore]

Even if Ducks don't have a pool to take a bath in, they will try to do the same thing with a water dish as long as they can dip their whole head in it and will sling water all over themselves and everything else around them.

Just a Duck being a Duck, it's normal behavior.