Soft duck eggs

[The Golden Girl]

Hey all!

We have a mixed flock including four ducks we have rescued at different stages. We’ve been having problems with two of the ladies laying eggs in the middle of the run with very, very thin membrane-type shells: just big splats! I give them 17% layer feed, free-feed oyster shell and we feed the birds’ shells back to them periodically with a bowl of peas.

I’m at a loss. These ladies came from a rough situation, but they were laying just fine when we brought them home about two years ago. We’ve kept chickens for oh, 13 years? But I thought maybe there’s something duck-nutrition related that I’m missing. Any ideas? I do give them nutritional yeast for niacin.

 

[Tinab158]

May I ask what you’re feeding your ducks? I recently started having this issue with mine (I have 3 ducks, 2 breeds). It’s probably lack of calcium in their diet. I was feeding a duck feed that had about 25% of the necessary calcium to produce good shells. Even though my ducks were eating huge quantities of egg shells daily, they had awful shells and literally stopped laying…for months. I switched to a chicken layer feed (made by the same company as the duck feed), and they started laying again.

 

[Jenbirdee]

Wow, so you’re giving a layer feed and you have shells available and even feed them their own shells you would think you wouldn’t have this problem but do you know how old the ducks are some of my nine-year-olds are having problems like that it’s amazing They still lay at all but anyway the answer is liquid calcium gluconate it says injectable, but we don’t inject it. We give it orally to Ducks. You can give one ML per day for a couple of weeks until the problem goes away. This is what works best for Ducks. Apparently for chickens, it works better to give them a calcium citrate with D3 tablet. Anyhoo here’s directions and a pic
https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...dications-to-all-poultry-and-waterfowl.73335/

 

[Tinab158]

My ducks are young…so I was surprised when they started to have issues laying eggs.

I got my first two Pekins when they were about 2 months old. They came with duck feed, but I have no clue what brand. At about four months, they stated laying every morning and after a period of quarantine, they joined my chickens in their coop and run. I then added another two month old mixed breed duck, and she also started laying every morning.

In the chicken run, they ate duck feed and the chicken’s layer feed (same brand) and a HUGE amount of egg shells. They ate so many shells, my neighbors started saving theirs for me, but they still continued to lay almost daily (at least 2 eggs every day between the three of them). One duck started laying shell-less eggs.

After about 6 months, I moved them to their own run where they only had duck feed. Egg production stopped. Completely. I thought maybe the move upset them (the new run was 10’ from the chicken’s run)…then molt happened…then the winter months…but after about 10 months of finding about one egg a week between the three ducks, I knew something was up. I switched them back to the chicken layer and they started laying again, not every morning, but I’m finding at least one egg daily, sometimes two. The one duck that was laying shell-less eggs, has yet to lay a good egg again.

I recently discovered the duck feed had less than 1% calcium…as it’s made for all ages of ducks. I spoke with the manufacturer and they said the eggshells should provide enough calcium. Clearly, that isn’t true for my three ducks.

I’ll look into this calcium supplement. Thank you for the advice…anxious to try it.