Rouen laying soft eggs every day

[MarieNC]

My Rouen duck Ella is about 1.5 years old and had been laying good, solid eggs every day since about October of last year. In the last 2-3 months she gone from laying good eggs, to laying a few soft eggs a week, to laying nothing but soft eggs every day. I've given her free choice oyster shells and now I'm mixing them in with her feed. She and her mate Sam have been on Flockraiser since they were young. She eats and acts normally despite the soft eggs, which turn up just about everywhere, including their pool. I honestly can't remember the last solid egg she laid. Does she need some other calcium source or does this sound like a reproductive issue? I don't need to have the duck eggs and I'm not going to incubate any of them, but I just want to be sure this isn't bad for her for some reason and I'll take her to the avian vet.

 

[Tivona]

I hope you figure out what it is. I had a duck do this for almost a year. I also have heard of another person having this happen to another duck.

I tried everything I could think of. Antibiotics, worming her, extra calcium, brewers yeast for extra nutrients, apple cider vinegar, etc. She never had good shells again. Eventually she stopped even having the membrane on the egg. Just the yolk and white plopped on the ground. She seem healthy enough with bright eyes, running around, eating and drinking and bathing and all general ducky behavior. She eventually after many months of this took a sudden down turn holding her tail down like she hurt. Fresh baths seemed to help her feel a bit better but she died a couple of days later. None of my other ducks have shown any problems. The other person who had this happen I hear also had the duck die after months of no shell then membrane-less eggs and the rest of their ducks are fine.

Sorry I can't be of more help and I really hope your duck gets better. Taking her to the vet might not be a bad idea if she has had this going on for that long. No avian vet here that I know of so I never had that option. I did wonder if if was Egg drop syndrome but not everything matched up. Perhaps a vet could tell.

 

[Amiga]

My vet explains that the thin shelled or no shelled eggs indicate a calcium problem. It may be that she is not eating enough, or that she isn't processing it properly.

I have a theory I cannot prove, that good egg layers need to rest, and that resets their egg laying system and they are good again. I have seen it with my runners. What I do not know is how to get them to reset. It has just happened in the past.

I recently lost a buff, similar symptoms, and I think it was a calcium problem although I am awaiting necropsy results.

In any case, low calcium affects pretty much every system in their bodies. Cardiovascular, neurological, bones, you name it.

Something I have been able to do with mixed results is get the vet to give a calcium injection followed with neocalglucan by mouth for a week. But perhaps you can get her into a dark area for more hours of the day to get her system to slow down or stop laying for a while.

Prayers for you both.