Soft eggs...my ducks? please help

[LabMama]

Ok so I live here in Va we just had a hurricane on saturday, while cleaning up the debris on sunday we found about 6 eggs. A few were smushed. They vary in size one is very small a little bigger than a pea the rest are mostly quarter size to 50 cent piece size. You can see right through them it looks like a big old grub worm or something curled up & I swear you can feel it move( maybe its just me lol). we have a pekin male and a khaki campbell femal and they have been mating alot lately they are both farely young 4-5 months old. Could it be duck eggs? they hang out there alot we also have chicken but they dont go near the flowers that I have seen. A neighbor told me it could be snake eggs but I googled it and it said they lay them underground..and these were laying on top of the mulch. The mulch was placed in a way to where it looks like something was laying on them. Do these soft eggs hatch? what can I do to make them hard if they are ducks?

 

[jdywntr]

If they are young, it could just be her first efforts. What are you feeding them? If it does not have calcium ie layer feed, do you supplement with oyster shell?
Was there a depression in the ground? My ducks would dig a hole.
They may not be duck eggs. One of my females after going off food for a bit layed an egg a little smaller than a golf ball and it was soft on 1 side.

 

[FenDruadin]

That doesn't sound like duck eggs to me. I'd guess some sort of reptile--while it may be true that snakes lay their eggs underground, there is an entire universe of reptiles out there and I'd be willing to bet that at least some of them might create a "nest" similar to what you describe. The curled up worm-thing inside, and the exceptional small size, is what makes me think they're not duck.

Ducks will sometimes lay small and/or mushy eggs at first, and that's not a problem. But they won't usually put them in a nest of any sort--early attempts usually are just dropped wherever they happen to be. And it would be very unusual for there to be so many that are so exceptionally small. I've had hundreds of young duck eggs, and only one that was as small as a silver dollar in diameter.

Can you put them back and then watch to see what hatches out of them? Could be really cool. Or not--if it's poisonous snakes, you could go ahead and kill them straight away (warning--copperheads hatch out full of venom, so don't get bitten!).

 

[LabMama]

yes there is a small indent in the ground where they were. I went out there today and they had kinda shriveled up like raisins. I give the chickens and ducks the same kinda of feed the non medicated pellets, I havent given them any oyster shells or anything. Do u suggest I do that? they free range all the time. thanks for yall info!!!!