What to do about bad laying habits or is it something else?

[dotknott]

Howdy folks.

Sunday afternoon my husband called me from the coop.. asking if we were missing any ceramic eggs. I told him that one had gone missing about a year ago, but other than that none had gone missing recently. I headed out to see what was up and he pointed out something that DEFINITELY looked like an egg, small dab in the middle of the stream, about 6 ft away and 2 ft underwater. After a bit of back and forth, with him deciding that it was obviously the ceramic egg that went missing some time ago, he grabbed a stick and started to roll it along the stream bed. About 2 ft away from the shore he smacked it pretty hard and found that it was the real deal.

Fast forward to this morning. I relent, after having the ducks on house arrest for laying eggs in the stream, and let them out. They immediately run to the stream and start their playing/bathing/preening/courtship rituals. As I’m sitting there watching, I realize that there’s another egg in the water. This ones much closer, so I grab a hand rake from the shed and try to fish it out with out falling in (successfully!) The one I pulled out this AM looks like it had been there for a while, unless bloom does weird things when it only has contact with water..

So.. What are my options to remedy this? It appears that I either have a duck that lays in the stream, or I have a bumbling egg thief that is dropping eggs that laid in the coop during the day and STOLEN. How do I id the actual issue? Ideas are VERY welcome!

 

[sourland]

In my experience ducks have generally laid in the morning. Keeping them penned until noon might solve this problem.

 

[dotknott]

sorry dupe thread: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...out-bad-laying-habits-or-is-it-something-else

I had them penned from 4pm Sunday until 8:30 am Tuesday and I got fewer eggs than normal!

 

[FoodFreedomNow]

My guess is someone just likes to lay in the water...I found a rubber egg in the ducks' pool this summer, but that was an anomaly. I recently found, at morning feeding, that a hen had dropped an egg right by the food bowl, too.

In my experience, sometimes they just do those kinds of strange things.

 

[jaybud]

I agree with sourland, keep the duckies penned until the egg is layed. I had almost the same issue with my pekin. Now she lays in the coop ritually before she comes out. You would be surprised how easily u can get them set on a schedule.

 

[dotknott]

Let's keep this to the other thread please. If there's an Admin around, I'd like to lock this one if possible.