I was watching my ducks playing on land at about 1:30 pm today and, as I often see, a male had gotten on top of a pekin female. We have a huge lake for our ducks so normally they do the mating in the water so I thought this was weird and continued to watch. Well after a few seconds of the male being on top of the female an egg had plopped out! I went to collect it and noticed that it had no hard shell.
Our pekin ducks started laying about a week ago and will be six months old on September 1st.
We have also gotten significantly smaller eggs that we believe to have come from our 2 runner hens who will be 5 months old on September 1st.
Between all 10 girls we get about 1-3 eggs (all normal) a day. We do let them out about 7am though so it's very possible that eggs are being laid other places besides their pen and we just haven't seen them.
So my question is; is this a sign of an egg bound duck or could it have been an accidental laying of an egg that should have been laid tomorrow?
We are getting oyster shell for them tonight as a precaution but I just want to make sure I didn't miss the signs of an egg bound duck.
Our pekin ducks started laying about a week ago and will be six months old on September 1st.
We have also gotten significantly smaller eggs that we believe to have come from our 2 runner hens who will be 5 months old on September 1st.
Between all 10 girls we get about 1-3 eggs (all normal) a day. We do let them out about 7am though so it's very possible that eggs are being laid other places besides their pen and we just haven't seen them.
So my question is; is this a sign of an egg bound duck or could it have been an accidental laying of an egg that should have been laid tomorrow?
We are getting oyster shell for them tonight as a precaution but I just want to make sure I didn't miss the signs of an egg bound duck.
