New to raising ducks, 1st eggs

[idaduck]

Hello I am new to this site and have found it very helpful.
We got our baby ducks in the spring of this year and have enjoyed every minute of it. We started with 3 cayuga and 3 Rouen. Hoping to have more females then males. Well we ended up with 3 male cayugas and 2 male and 1 female rouens. Knowing that we should have more females than males, we procesed 2 cayugas and 1 rouen male. After doing so we noticed that our ducks calmed down.
I have been waiting for some eggs and 1 week after we got rid of the males we got our first egg. So far our rouen has laid 4 eggs in 4 days. Now for some ??s We raise chickens and I understand how the chicken lays eggs without the rooster and the eggs are not fertalized. I know that some people raise chickens with roosters and the eggs are fertalized and people still eat them. Do ducks work the same way? or do ducks only mate certain times of the year?
If the males and females are always together are the eggs going to be fertal?
Is it ok to eat the eggs if they are fertal? Or should I seperate the males and females?
Thanks for reading this and I am looking forward to hearing the answers to these ??s
Idaduck.

 

[TriciaHowe]

Yes, you can eat fertile duck eggs, just like chickens. I find my ducks will go through long periods where they don't lay a couple of times a year. Mine are just getting back into laying now. Now reason to separate unless you feel she is being overbred. My female ducks tend to loose a lot of feathers off the back of their heads in spring when mating is at it peek. All of my ducks run together with no issues (I have about 20-25 females to 15 or so males). I haven't counted in a while LOL!

 

[idaduck]

Thanks for the info