Pekin Duck Club!

[Table4Six]

My pekins are six months old and recently started laying. When I locked the coop door tonight I found this.
View attachment 1137247 Do they lay at night? Or is she deciding to go broody? She wasn't on the nest today, she was ducking around with the rest of her troop.

I have 20 female ducks, only about 10 of which are laying. And the 10 that are laying have laid their eggs in the middle of the night ever since they started.

 

[Mistyclouds]

My Pekin should begin to lay sometime this week, along with our two blue swedish.

 

[Table4Six]

It's always fun when they start laying.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Tasty too

 

[duckluvr21]

We are having trouble with mice getting in the duck feeder eating their food. My question is, would it be okay to only feed them twice a day like I do my dogs? Or do they need food all day? Maybe if the feeder wasn't always full we'd have less mice issues.
Second question, what age do females typically go broody? My little duck is about a year and a half old and has never shown signs of brooding. Is this common?

 

[dntkriner]

Hello guys. we have 4 Pekins that we hatched from an incubator that are now almost 4 months old. (1 male, 3 females.) We haven't had any problems but this morning I noticed one of the girls acting very strange. She wasn't staying with the others and seemed "off." I checked her out and didn't see any injury. I added a little apple cider vinegar to one of the buckets of water when we left for a football game, just in case she just got overheated. (It has been very warm here this week.) We returned to find her deceased and the others seemed to not understand why she wasn't coming in to the night box with them. My question is: how on earth am I to know what happened to her? Do I need to do anything to ensure my other ducks don't die as well? Any help would be appreciated. They have all been doing so well and our lives have been so enriched by these ducks that I'm kind of in shock at how fast this happened.

 

[Miss Lydia]

We are having trouble with mice getting in the duck feeder eating their food. My question is, would it be okay to only feed them twice a day like I do my dogs? Or do they need food all day? Maybe if the feeder wasn't always full we'd have less mice issues.
Second question, what age do females typically go broody? My little duck is about a year and a half old and has never shown signs of brooding. Is this common?

Are they foraging during the day? I keep feed out all day long but I have read where other put feed out and let them eat all they can for like 15 mins then take it up and do again in the evenings. This I'd only do if they can forage since layers need a lot of calories to help with egg production Not unhealthy calories but food feed is what I mean.

As for brooding not all Pekins will brood probably more won't than will. A lot of domesticated ducks have had that bred out and it's either meat or egg production and Pekins were developed for meat and eggs. But I have seen others here who have had a Pekin sit eggs and hatch so you never know, leave some eggs if she gathers some and see what happens.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Hello guys. we have 4 Pekins that we hatched from an incubator that are now almost 4 months old. (1 male, 3 females.) We haven't had any problems but this morning I noticed one of the girls acting very strange. She wasn't staying with the others and seemed "off." I checked her out and didn't see any injury. I added a little apple cider vinegar to one of the buckets of water when we left for a football game, just in case she just got overheated. (It has been very warm here this week.) We returned to find her deceased and the others seemed to not understand why she wasn't coming in to the night box with them. My question is: how on earth am I to know what happened to her? Do I need to do anything to ensure my other ducks don't die as well? Any help would be appreciated. They have all been doing so well and our lives have been so enriched by these ducks that I'm kind of in shock at how fast this happened.

Very sorry for your loss, they can sure hide their illness till right before death a lot of times. So unless you had a necropsy done you'll never know. Hopefully it was just something with her and the rest will be fine.

Your box you keep them in at night is it got good ventilation windows etc? Very important ducks have good fresh air flow where they sleep even in winter months.

I had one of my Runners get sick and die no idea either but what I did is I used some Oxine Ah and went in and sprayed the coop down real good before letting the rest in to sleep but you know they had all been around her all week that she was sick so I doubt my efforts did much, so far all of mine are doing fine and it's been a little over a week since she passed.
Other than just keeping a close eye on the others for now and making sure they have good feed and fresh water with ACV added it's a great tonic, clean bedding as possible Ammonia build up is another killer of poultry so another reason for good ventilation inside their houses.
Wish I could add more.
Please let us know how everyone is doing it may take them several days to get over their loss they form such a close bond with their flock.

 

[duckluvr21]

Are they foraging during the day? I keep feed out all day long but I have read where other put feed out and let them eat all they can for like 15 mins then take it up and do again in the evenings. This I'd only do if they can forage since layers need a lot of calories to help with egg production Not unhealthy calories but food feed is what I mean.

As for brooding not all Pekins will brood probably more won't than will. A lot of domesticated ducks have had that bred out and it's either meat or egg production and Pekins were developed for meat and eggs. But I have seen others here who have had a Pekin sit eggs and hatch so you never know, leave some eggs if she gathers some and see what happens.

They have a pretty large outdoor enclosure so they forge all day long. Maybe I'll try putting the food away at night and only letting it out during the day and see if that helps. As for her brooding, thanks for the information. This is the first time I've ever had ducks and I'm still learning some of their behaviors.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Yes def put food up at night.