Wild Duck Egg Advice

[CorvusTristis18]

Hello,

Hoping someone experienced with ducks can help, there are wild mallards laying eggs around my workplace. We are beside the water and the female duck has been leaving eggs in the gravel beside the road and now in my planters. I had though that she would lay every day, and then gather the eggs to incubate simultaneously. However, my planter is a box over two feet high. I don't imagine that she could recover that egg? If I found her nest I could place it there, but it is a large site and I think my chances of discovering her intended nest is slim.

How do your ducks move their eggs to gather them in one place, and how can I make sure that she can safely gather all of her eggs when she is ready?

 

[CorvusTristis18]

Ah, that makes perfect sense, thanks. I'm curious, would these random drops still be viable if she did incubate them, or probably not fertilised? They're waking around in pairs and apparently trampling on the contents of every planter I've collected the egg from the road to avoid any mess, and put this with the one half-buried in my planter to keep cool just in case.

I'll look out for her eventual nest and put up poles to mark it to protect from the tourists and traffic!

 

[Soon2BChixMom]

I would just let nature take its course.

 

[sylviethecochin]

When ducks go broody, they begin laying their eggs all in one place. Until then, it's random dropping. They can and will lay eggs in the water.

 

[casportpony]

Welcome to BYC!

 

[chickens really]

She isn't setting But Ducks lay eggs daily so just toss those. If she was nesting they would be laid in a nest as a clutch..

 

[CorvusTristis18]

So she's put another egg into the planter! I had added the egg I found by the road to the egg she had laid there. This morning I found three I'm hopeful that she will now sit there when she's ready and keep adding to that area.

 

[Lazy Farmer]

I wouldn't intervene. Migratory birds are federally protected and hatching them might be a no no.
Recently here in Florida, on the news, a restaurant owner is facing charges for moving duck eggs away from his restaurant. One of his employees dropped a dime on him. He is facing charges right now.
Call a wildlife rescue if you want to help. I wouldn't touch them with a ten foot pole after seeing the news the other night. I don't want reporters turning me into dirty laundry.

 

[casportpony]

I wouldn't intervene. Migratory birds are federally protected and hatching them might be a no no.
Recently here in Florida, on the news, a restaurant owner is facing charges for moving duck eggs away from his restaurant. One of his employees dropped a dime on him. He is facing charges right now.
Call a wildlife rescue if you want to help. I wouldn't touch them with a ten foot pole after seeing the news the other night. I don't want reporters turning me into dirty laundry.

For those curious:

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act makes it illegal for anyone to take, possess, import, export, transport, sell, purchase, barter, or offer for sale, purchase, or barter, any migratory bird, or the parts, nests, or eggs of such a bird except under the terms of a valid permit issued pursuant to Federal regulations. The migratory bird species protected by the Act are listed in 50 CFR 10.13.

Source:
https://www.fws.gov/birds/policies-and-regulations/laws-legislations/migratory-bird-treaty-act.php

Edited to add:
I should mention that I have had people give me Mallard Ducklings that they found in their yards and that if I found Mallard eggs in my yard I would probably incubate them

 

[sylviethecochin]

I have a new duck egg every morning in my flower pot. Up to 5 now. I never see the duck sitting on the eggs. Not during day, not during middle of the night. Are the eggs fertilized? Are they rotting? I live next to a lake. What advise to leave them, move them, toss them.

The duck's still building her nest. Once she has enough (probably around a dozen), she'll start setting on the nest, and twenty-eight days of incubation later (give or take) there should be ducklings.

If she sat on the eggs as she laid them, there would be a staggered hatch, i.e., the first egg would hatch on its twenty-eighth day, then the second egg would hatch a day later, and the third egg would hatch a day after that, and she'd be faced with the choice of letting her existing eggs cool down and die, or letting her hatched ducklings starve.