soft shell duck eggs

[rosyl]

my cayuga duck is 2 years old now and recently has been laying soft shelled eggs; she was a laying since she was around 8 months and almost daily... she stopped laying since feb when she was moulting and started again on and off but not as regularly as before... she is getting bald again on her head and i found 3 very soft shell eggs 3 days in a roll after couple weeks without eggs... anybody knows why? she is raised with 12 other chickens and her best friend is a mille fleur and she hates water... i had not been able to get her to go swimming at all, she would paddle but always try to get out as fast as possible... she would only make muddy mess with any water i leave out for her and the chickens... she sleeps in the coop with the chicken at night and actually lays her eggs inside the coop on the ground where the chickens sleep up in their nest boxes

 

[HottentotTeal]

They need calcium when they are laying to produce the harder shells on the eggs.

I believe many people here recommend providing crushed oyster shells to laying hens for calcium.

You can also provide a laying diet with extra calcium, but it's not a good idea for the drakes to eat a lot of it from what i have read.

edit: It's not recommended to provide the extra calcium year round, only to laying hens.

 

[katharinad]

I provide oyster shell in a small bowl on the side. They girls eat it and they boy ignores it.

 

[Hattiegun]

Quote:
I do what katharind says-- i have 2 boys/2 girls all together and feed purina duck chow.. My girls are old enough to lay and I sat out a dish of oyster shells.. My one little gal just layed her first egg Thurs and the shell is Hard... and today we found her little nest tucked away in the corner of the pen with THREE eggs in it !!!!!!!!!!! All are perfect hard shelled eggs....I see her chowing down the oyster shells like crazy ... so now I dont have to change feed and try and seperate ... works great.

 

[Deester]

Thanks so much!! I recently changed food because the girl at the store recommended it. They just started laying about 10 days before the switch so I wasn't too sure what was going on.

We had been doing some work on the duck run and thought maybe they were stressed by that.

Thank you!!

Denise