Odd Egg Predator

DuckDuckJuice

Songster
Feb 2, 2021
133
259
131
Ohio
We’ve had at least three pairs of mallards visiting our yard/ducks for the last few weeks. They swim in our pond and hang around most of the day. We’ve enjoyed having them around, but I’ve been concerned they might get too comfortable and try to nest here (one of our dogs eats every egg he finds, so that’s not ideal).

Well, this morning my husband was doing the daily check for nests and found an egg in our driveway. It was completely intact, other than a small hole (~4mm) in the bottom. It was clearly a mallard egg, not from one of our ducks, but there was no nest in sight so I believe it was carried away from the nest by another animal. I took the egg inside, poked another hole in the top, and blew the contents out, only to discover that the yolk had been removed but the white was left behind.

Has anyone ever seen this before? Any ideas what animal would make such a small hole and be able to remove the yolk with such precision? There wasn’t a single speck of yellow/broken yolk left. It was almost surgical.

I’ve added a picture of the hole, as well as a size comparison picture with an egg from each of our girls (Welsh Harlequin, Khaki Campbell, two Silver Appleyards, and a Pekin).
 

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My guess is that it was laid without a yolk. That could also explain the hole in the shell, if things didn't go quite right when it was being formed and laid. I imagine that it would be very difficult for any predator to remove a yolk like that while leaving minimal shell breakage other than the hole.
 

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