Story time
I have one year old Runner duck that is left from last year's trio (first time with ducks). The other female got eaten by something around Thanksgiving last year and the drake was killed by our dog around the first of this year when the door to the pen was not latched correctly. We found the drake alive, but he had a deep cut on his shoulder and it was when it was very cold (10 degrees). Our current hen was laying beside him when he died in a cage inside of our house. We knew we had to get another duck right away so the search was on. Finally 2 weeks later I was able to find a lady downsizing her ducks and bought 3 year-old hens (Campbell, Swedish, Cayuga). There was a little scuffling, but they settled down very quickly (if only my chickens would have paid attention!). When our first female was killed, we decided to incubate the eggs we had in our small incubator. All seven eggs hatched but one didn't make it past the first couple of days. Anyway, fast forward to today, we have 10 ducks in total (6 hens and 4 drakes). The youngest are now 15 weeks old and it's about time to downsize our drakes to probably two.
A couple of weeks after we got the additional hens I started getting 3 eggs a day. I'm thinking these are all from the purchased hens as the eggs don't look like the ones we were getting from our 2 Runners. So our oldest Runner hen hasn't laid an egg since her drake was killed 4 months ago (that I am aware of). She doesn't seem to be hurt and is socializing with the rest of the ducks just fine. So the question is, will she ever lay again? I know she has been through so much and I don't have any plans to get rid of her, I'm just worried about her.
Thanks,
Josh
I have one year old Runner duck that is left from last year's trio (first time with ducks). The other female got eaten by something around Thanksgiving last year and the drake was killed by our dog around the first of this year when the door to the pen was not latched correctly. We found the drake alive, but he had a deep cut on his shoulder and it was when it was very cold (10 degrees). Our current hen was laying beside him when he died in a cage inside of our house. We knew we had to get another duck right away so the search was on. Finally 2 weeks later I was able to find a lady downsizing her ducks and bought 3 year-old hens (Campbell, Swedish, Cayuga). There was a little scuffling, but they settled down very quickly (if only my chickens would have paid attention!). When our first female was killed, we decided to incubate the eggs we had in our small incubator. All seven eggs hatched but one didn't make it past the first couple of days. Anyway, fast forward to today, we have 10 ducks in total (6 hens and 4 drakes). The youngest are now 15 weeks old and it's about time to downsize our drakes to probably two.
A couple of weeks after we got the additional hens I started getting 3 eggs a day. I'm thinking these are all from the purchased hens as the eggs don't look like the ones we were getting from our 2 Runners. So our oldest Runner hen hasn't laid an egg since her drake was killed 4 months ago (that I am aware of). She doesn't seem to be hurt and is socializing with the rest of the ducks just fine. So the question is, will she ever lay again? I know she has been through so much and I don't have any plans to get rid of her, I'm just worried about her.
Thanks,
Josh
