Where are my eggs coming from?

[abbaschickens]

I have 4 Cayuga ducks and 1 Rouan duck.

1 -- 18 month old Male Cayuga (Waddles) based on 3 little curved feathers on tail, makes little or not noise and mounts my chicken hens like there is no tomorrow. The curved tail feathers disappeared this last week. Waddles has nothing to do with the 3 females. He spends the day with his hen friends wondering the yard.

2 - Three ~ 6 month old female Cayuga ducks based on sexing from Ideal hatchery. One of these "hens" mounts the other two daily in the pond. I can tell them apart because I was very new to ducks and just wanted females so Waddles would stop mounting the hens. They spend the day in their 300 gallon pond.

So I purchased three crested ducks to match our crested flock of hens. I now know that crested Cayuga was a bad decision and my daughter will not be allowed to breed them.

3 - Rouan duck (Puddles) that is about 3 months old. She/he but I am thinking it a she. Rouan is in the process of moving from nursery land to adult world. Puddles sleeps in the big coop but does not go into the pond. We put Puddles in the pond several times a week but immediate jumps out. She does play in puddles and a small pool/puddle.

So now you know my bird situation. Here is my question, I am getting 3 beautiful duck eggs every morning in the duck nesting box. I have been getting eggs for about 2 weeks. It started with 1 black egg. The next day no eggs. The next day a dark grey egg and lighter grey egg. About a week later 2 light grey eggs and an almost white egg. The eggs are almost the same size. The whitish is about 1/4" longer then the 2 light grey eggs. I have been getting 3 eggs every day now.

So where is the third egg coming from? Is Waddles a girl? Is the mounting Cayuga really a girl just mounting another girl? Is Puddles laying before she is old enough?

Thanks for any help you can provide us!

 

[abbaschickens]

I see several of you are looking at this post but not providing me any feed back. I need help. I am new to ducks about 18 months. A neighbor gave Waddles and 5 hens to my daughter when they were about 1 month old.

In addition to the where are my eggs coming from question. In reading other posts I see that others have females mounting other females. So this might mean I have a female acting like a male. Strange. Why do the other 2 hens respond to he/she bobs and courting jesters?

Why isn't the male even interested in the females?

Any help is appreciated.

 

[Going Quackers]

Well first of all i'd be very cautious about this drake so called mounting those hens, they are not compatible and can harm even kill hens.

Next, not really to familiar with the breeds so cannot help much with egg colours BUT if they are girls they quack, drakes? they don't. It's usually quite obvious, i have some buffs (female) with my scovie flock and they go on and on lol

Yes, females will mount other females, that is a dominance thing, females fight too. It isn't just down to drakes for this. Ducks usually lay at about 5-8mths but some will as young as 4mths, i have had some here do that.

Sounds like you have a lot of sub flocks, that can alter behaviours, was waddles raised by chickens? if so could be a slight identity crisis lol

 

[Mvpitzki]

All the eggs might be coming from the Cayugas, their eggs tend to get lighter later into the laying season. That explains why you are getting light grey eggs and the white egg after you got the black egg. Try keeping your male away from chickens as it could harm them because of weight difference. Soon the male duck will get attracted to the female ducks when it knows it cant mount the chickens anymore.

 

[learycow]

My guess would be the cayugas are all laying.
They tend to start out as black eggs, lighten to gray, and then to white as the laying season progresses. Some will stay gray, some will actually be green (these start out black too). Each duck is different.
So my guess is you have 3 cayugas laying, some have laid more eggs than others thus explaining the lighter colored eggs.

And as for the male, he could possibly be breeding the ducks as well. They sometimes do it when you aren't looking. But I would agree with everyone else and see if you can keep him separated from the chickens.

Female ducks will sometimes mount other females. This doesn't make them a male, it's just an odd behavior that some will show when they sexually mature.

And you can use the crested drake for breeding. If you breed 2 crested ducks you are more likely to have deformities or ducklings that don't make it out of the shell. But if you breed crested with non crested, you should be fine and probably won't get any (or very few) crested ducklings

 

[abbaschickens]

Thank you. I really appreciate the information.