Muscovy laying soft shelled eggs

[cajun41887]

My Muscovy hen is broody and has been sitting on fake eggs going on about 10 days or so. She had been laying daily for the past 3 weeks or so and recently in the last few days we’ve found several shell-less eggs. 2 on Saturday, one yesterday and one today. We have another female Muscovy and her eggs are fine, but she just stopped laying. They are young and just started laying a few weeks ago. We also have a Muscovy Drake and 3 Pekins (all ducks who are only 8-9 weeks old so not laying yet). They are being fed a mixture of Nutrena All Flock mixed with some higher protein chick starter and some whole oats (about 1/4 of ration is whole oats, most of diet is all flock) They have free access to pasture and get collard greens nightly along with other veggie scraps from us. Also free access to oyster shell in a separate dish next to feed, but I’ve never seen them touch it. I recently (yesterday) started mixing some of the oyster shell into their feed. Any suggestions? We have tons of chicken experience and I’ve read Stoney’s guide to ducks cover to cover. Should I try to get her to eat some tums just to get some calcium into her? We don’t feed spinach as I know that can cause an issue with calcium absorption. I’m a veterinary nurse, so I feel like I’m doing all the right things, but if I can’t get her to eat the oyster shell, it’s no good just sitting in a dish.

 

[dotporter]

Young muscovy often throw off shell-less eggs. You seem to be doing everything right. She just hasn't gotten the hang of it yet.

 

[dotporter]

Just a side note, sometimes I'll just toss the oyster shell on the ground if they aren't eating it out of the bowl. It doesn't always work, but sometimes they'll see the white specks on the ground and decide "Hey, that looks different, I have to eat that!"

 

[Soon2BChixMom]

I would put the oyster shell on the side. I would also crush up their egg shells and put those on the side as well. My chickens prefer the crushed egg shells to the oyster shell.
The heat might be causing the soft shelled eggs. I have a few now and then from the chickens. I supplemented them with tums and manna pro omega egg maker - it has vitamin d in it which helps with the absorption of calcium.
My muscovies arent laying yet, but if they were having issues, I would do the same.

 

[cajun41887]

Thank you everyone. Definitely will give all the suggestions a try.

 

[happy duck]

Just make sure they are getting that calcium they need(as you are trying to do). This is not a problem with you but with the ducks. They always want to be stubborn when we don't need it!

 

[Miss Lydia]

Calcium citrate and cal gluconate were rec by a vet for a duck having shell problems.

@Amiga

 

[casportpony]

If she were mine I would give 50 mg per pound calcium citrate orally or calcium gluconate orally or by injection. You can get the calcium citrate at a pharmacy and the calcium gluconate at feed stores in the cattle section.

 

[Amiga]

When a duck lays a soft egg (not just when they first start to lay), I add 250 mg calcium citrate to a couple tablespoons of thawed peas and feed them to the duck, then follow with 100 mg a day for a few days afterward.

 

[Timothy Menezes]

While most of my ducks (and chickens) were cooperative about their intake of calcium, I have had a couple over the years that refused to eat any form of it and had ongoing issues with no shell or softshell eggs.

If that's the case your probably going to have the switch to layer feed that has the calcium blended in. I prefer Purina Layena as it has slightly higher calcium levels (3.5%) than most others (2.5 to 3%). But see what your feed store has. Also if the ducks are big enough to be laying eggs then you probably don't need the high protein chick starter anymore.