They're crushing their eggs!

[DeckDuck]

Maddy, my Blue Swedish duck, laid her first egg on Saturday. She laid it in the middle of the duck coop floor, right in front of the water and food buckets and in perhaps the most high traffic area of the coop. It was trampled into the straw and covered in poop when I found it, though it was unharmed otherwise. I just assumed that she would figure out how to lay in the nesting boxes I've provided once she had a little more experience. That's how it's always been with my chickens.

When she laid her egg the next day, she had made a nest and deposited her egg in the dirty straw in the same location she had chosen last time. I took the egg away and destroyed the nest. The next day she had done the same thing -made a nest in the same location and laid the egg there. I again took the egg away and destroyed the nest,

This duck has several nesting boxes, as well as several cozy corners and nooks, available to her for building a nest. I was becoming worried that someone would break an egg one of these days if she didn't start laying somewhere else, so I spiffed up the nest boxes and tried to make them extra inviting. I've seen her go into the nesting boxes to bill through the straw so I know that she's not unwilling to go in them.

Then this morning I found a new nest in the same place by the food bucket, but this time it was empty. There were egg shells scattered several feet away. Gosh darn it, ducks!

I'm worried that my drake could have been the culprit -it's totally his personality to destroy everything he can get his bill on- and if he did it then he could easily become an egg eater.

Ack! Help, what do I do? Are ducks always like this? This is my first time with female ducks. I had heard about ducks laying in their water or outside -but eating them on the fourth day?! This is crazy. My chickens have never eaten an egg before; none except for a house chicken that laid eggs with no shell.

I'm thinking about removing her from the group for a while so that at the very least my drake wont be learning to eat eggs while Maddy and I get this figured out. Is there a standard course of action for addressing something like this?

Observation: this must be why duck eggs have thicker shells than chicken eggs.

 

[Amiga]

Breathe, champ.

I let my ducks decide where to nest. Since she is new to this, there are likely to be some decisions she makes that make you scratch your head.

How did the egg shell shards feel? A little thin? Sometimes eggs have thinner shells, and break easily. Is she getting supplemental calcium?

Any chance you can rearrange the feed and water station (just a thought, just a thought) and harness the inevitable?

My ducks once used nest boxes I provided for them, for a while. My girls seem to prefer corners and concrete walls. I try to work with them. I can see your concerns, but she's not seeing them right now.

In fact, it may turn out that if you let her have her little nest where she wants it, in a few days she will decide to move to another one.

Looks like she can see outside from her nest, but not from the nest boxes provided. That may affect her behavior.

 

[DeckDuck]

Thanks for your help Amiga. I guess I was pretty nervous when I wrote that last post. My concerns that egg-eating might happen have proved to be valid, unfortunately.

Over the past week the girls became increasingly creative with their nest placement and began covering the eggs over with straw. I finally convinced them to start laying in the nest box, and I now know why they were so adverse to the idea. My drake Casper ate four of their eggs this morning! My poor girls were trying to outwit their drake, no me. By laying the eggs all in one place and where they were visible, instead of carefully hidden under the straw and in different batches each day, the eggs were an easy target for my drake.

I feed them a layer pellet and all the crushed oyster shell they can eat. I'm also confident that there are no predators getting into the coop to eat these eggs as the whole set up is pretty water tight in that respect. Is egg eating a common behavior in drakes? It seems that Casper ate the third egg he ever encountered. All of the shells I have found from his crimes have been thick and well developed, but considering the fact that my girls just started to lay, I suppose a soft shelled egg could have been laid and broken open accidentally to begin all of this.

So you were absolutely right, Amiga. There was a rhyme and a reason to what my girls were doing. I, only having experience with laying as it pertains to chickens, was thoroughly oblivious.

I guess I'm going to have to segregate Casper at night before he teaches his new discovery to anyone else.

 

[Amiga]

Thanks for your help Amiga. I guess I was pretty nervous when I wrote that last post. My concerns that egg-eating might happen have proved to be valid, unfortunately.

Over the past week the girls became increasingly creative with their nest placement and began covering the eggs over with straw. I finally convinced them to start laying in the nest box, and I now know why they were so adverse to the idea. My drake Casper ate four of their eggs this morning! My poor girls were trying to outwit their drake, no me. By laying the eggs all in one place and where they were visible, instead of carefully hidden under the straw and in different batches each day, the eggs were an easy target for my drake.

I feed them a layer pellet and all the crushed oyster shell they can eat. I'm also confident that there are no predators getting into the coop to eat these eggs as the whole set up is pretty water tight in that respect. Is egg eating a common behavior in drakes? It seems that Casper ate the third egg he ever encountered. All of the shells I have found from his crimes have been thick and well developed, but considering the fact that my girls just started to lay, I suppose a soft shelled egg could have been laid and broken open accidentally to begin all of this.

So you were absolutely right, Amiga. There was a rhyme and a reason to what my girls were doing. I, only having experience with laying as it pertains to chickens, was thoroughly oblivious.

I guess I'm going to have to segregate Casper at night before he teaches his new discovery to anyone else.

Egg eating is not unheard of, drakes or ducks. each develops their own bad habits, I think. Glad you are determined to observe what is going on, and deal with it as best you can. Mercy. Drakes.