Peking ducks laying eggs

[Kathychandler]

I have 9 peking ducks who are 7 months old. 6 males, 3 females. 3 of them stay apart from the others - 2 males and 1 female. I've found a few eggs randomly laid around the pond so I put 2 dog crates with hay for them to lay in. How do you know if they're ready to nest and set and at what age do they typically do this? I've only had them about 5 weeks and they live freely on my 1/2 acre pond.

 

[Pyxis]

Unfortunately pekins (it's actually pekin with just the 'n', not peking, peking is a cooked duck dish) are not a very broody breed. They have been bred over generations to increase production, and since ducks stop laying when they are brooding and taking care of young, that would hurt production, so it's been mostly bred out of the breed. I won't say none will do it, I have one that does it, but in general don't count on them hatching their own eggs.

I also wanted to let you know you have way too many males. You have enough females for one male. I am surprised you haven't yet noticed your poor girls being run ragged by all the males with overmating. You should rehome five of the males so you only have one, or get enough females so that the ratio is three to four females per each male. At the very least rehome enough males that you only have pairs.

 

[Kathychandler]

Great info!! Thank you. I really don't have a way to trap the extra males so I guess I'll try to find 3 more females somewhere. And yes I have noticed the little girls have places on their necks where the boys have pecked them. I figured I had too many males. I bought all 9 from someone who raised them from babies.