What kind of ducks are good egglayers for laying?

[bobbieguyette]

I use kiddie pools also they work great but during the winter here i have to downsize to using those big rubber buckets and dishes cause they still love to play in the water even if its freezing out (silly ducks mine are still laying here which to me is unusual they have usually stopped at later spring time about 6 months old, the new babies i have here wont lay till spring (3 months old( due to winter coming none of them do that i have seen here everyone takes a winter break here in NH and I have a bit of everything here creasted ducks muscovey caylunga and pekin i have bought most of my eggs from they buy sell trade on the other backyard chicken board eggbid and ebay and neighborhood farmers too supposed to go and pick up some more muscovey duckling today I only have females and really could use a handsome man around i love the sound of them females sqeak and males make a deep hissing sound they are my favorites for sure

 

[greyfields]

The "Khaki Campbell" is hard to beat, unless you are willing to do your own homegrown hybrids (usually involving a Khaki Campbell as the female) in which case you can do even better.

Waterfowl are a bit different from chickens. They tend to come into lay in Winter, rather than when they reach any particular age (but yes, they need to be 5 or 6 months old). Most, if not all, waterfowl lay poorly in their first year then come into full lay their second year.

 

[aran]

our males have REALLY coloured up in the last couple of weeks...the 2 rouen boys are so obvioulsy feathered differntly from the female its hard now to believe I couldnt tell them apart just a little while ago. So if they are colouring up like this and they are around 6 months old, since its coming into winter are you saying they WILL or WILL NOT lay this year??

 

[RioLindoAz]

I read that the best duck layer is the cambell

 

[greyfields]

If they are getting their nuptial feathering (the nicely colored stuff) they will likely try to breed this Winter. Even with that said, in the first year, waterfowl may only lay half as many eggs as they will for the following years.

 

[GoodEgg]

I keep wondering when mine will lay. They are almost 5 and a half months now and one of the females has been breeding for I think about a month or more, and the other started a couple of weeks or so ago. The breeding goes on ALL the time.

Drakes got their drake feathers at 3 months I think, both on the same day, although they are different kinds and the black ones do seem (in general) to mature faster than the buff ones. They were colored differently and had different voices before that age ... from about 2 or 2-1/2 months.

It will be a while before my chickens lay yet, so I was hoping for some duck eggs soon. If they come into lay in winter ... hmmm. Well ... no sense worrying about it I guess. When they lay, they will lay!?! (But I still want the eggs ... we eat a lot of them and I'm paying $2.50 a dozen because I refuse to buy eggs from Wal-Mart.)

trish

 

[greyfields]

Like has been said, waterfowl come into lay in the Winter. Breeding can occurr before then, since the males tend to mature earlier than the females. But, I wouldn't be waiting for eggs until January probably at the earliest.