When do duckling start laying?

[EeyoreD]

I don't have a whole lot of duck knowledge but from my scant experience I would go by the voices and not the behaviour (I had one female who was a laying/nesting machine but would also be the drake when my drake died and the younglings weren't mature enough).

You clearly have ducks and you know the whisper-quack of a drake vs the shrill LOUD duck one. But it's tough when they're so young they're just whistling.

Side note, dang! You and others have said that pekins are laying machines. I love my scovies and they lay like crazy in the summer as long as they don't have young but... Maybe my Runners were a poor choice (because I can't find the dang eggs half the time!). And I also just realized that (apologies and don't mean to offend) foie gras ducks are a cross between Pekin and Scovy - a runner-scovy cross is less useful. But I've also heard that Pekins don't forage well - that basically they wait by the food area like CornishX chickens do. Meanwhile the scovies and runners "hunt" bugs and frogs all day long.

 

[Eluria]

All 3 of my hens lay like they were machines. The 2 not sitting on the nest lay one a day EVERY day. Sometimes one in the morning and one at night but always 2. Wish we liked boiled or fried duck eggs. LOL

Try baking with them? I've heard they are fantastic to bake with. I can't wait to try some when my ducks are laying

 

[Sylviaanne]

Try baking with them? I've heard they are fantastic to bake with. I can't wait to try some when my ducks are laying

We do cook with them, fewer eggs to crack. LOL But we get at least 3 chicken eggs a day and the kids won't eat them. I think they think they are dirty because they can see where these come from as opposed to the eggs in the grocery store so we end up with more and more eggs in the fridge. What I have taken to doing is boiling the duck eggs, peeling, mashing and feeding them to the baby chicks. I have though about just tossing the raw duck eggs out to the chickens but it's too hard. LOL I say I feed the eggs to the chickens because the ducks are too slow getting there to get any. Why the heck would it be easier to boil, peel and mash the eggs before feeding them to the chickens than just to toss them out there? I think it is because when they are raw, it is more like feeding them their young and why boiling them would make a difference to my sensibilities, I can't tell you. LOL

 

[Sylviaanne]

I don't have a whole lot of duck knowledge but from my scant experience I would go by the voices and not the behaviour (I had one female who was a laying/nesting machine but would also be the drake when my drake died and the younglings weren't mature enough).

You clearly have ducks and you know the whisper-quack of a drake vs the shrill LOUD duck one. But it's tough when they're so young they're just whistling.

Side note, dang! You and others have said that pekins are laying machines. I love my scovies and they lay like crazy in the summer as long as they don't have young but... Maybe my Runners were a poor choice (because I can't find the dang eggs half the time!). And I also just realized that (apologies and don't mean to offend) foie gras ducks are a cross between Pekin and Scovy - a runner-scovy cross is less useful. But I've also heard that Pekins don't forage well - that basically they wait by the food area like CornishX chickens do. Meanwhile the scovies and runners "hunt" bugs and frogs all day long.

No, my drake is pretty much silent. It is my lead Pekin hen who is so loud. Since the Fawn Indian Runner went broody and now has babies, she is pretty loud but the other Pekin hen has no need to make noise either. Of the 4 babies that I hatched in my incubator, the grey was very loud as the alpha of the group but has taken backseat to one of the blacks. It seems like each group has it's own leader and that is the noisy one for all of them in that group. It looks like the grey and 2 of the blacks are trying to blend into the adult group so now I wonder if the last black is another drake. I need to mark it some way to keep an eye on it to make sure the blacks are not just playing switch around. Like twins or triplets. LOL

My Indian Runner laid as well as my Pekin hens before she got broody, one a day. My Pekins forage all over the yard but love the most to suck on the water that runs out of the pools. Even the chickens seem to like this dirty water better than the clean water.