AUSTRALIAN POULTRY FORUM™

Only one of my muscovies is laying, and I'm pretty sure it's her first clutch. I'm not sure how many she's going to lay because she was laying from the first day I got her, so I don't know if she'd already been laying before I got her. So far I have collected 10 eggs off her. She has been laying in the shed until recently. There were a couple of days where she was holding onto the egg until I let them out so she could lay them in the garden. I suspected I might've been stressing her out by taking her eggs. So the next time she laid in the shed, I replaced the egg with a golf ball and she's been content to continue laying in the shed now. Almost every egg she's laid has been laid in a different spot(probably because I kept taking them). So now with the golf balls, she's finally laying in the one spot(in a box). But with all this rain we've had, part of their shed got a bit of water seeping in and I've had to move their sleeping spot to the middle of the shed so it doesn't get wet, and I've moved her nest box with the golf balls. She doesn't seem too bothered by the move as she laid another egg in there this morning.

Now my question is, I was considering letting her incubate however many eggs she's got left to lay. This is her first clutch and I've read that it's not a good idea to let them incubate them because they're smaller, so I was wanting to check how big they're supposed to be. I've been weighing each of the eggs I've taken, and they've all been 70g, but the last few in a row have been 80g, are they still supposed to get a little bigger? The only reason I want to let her incubate these eggs is because they may have been fertilised by the drake she was with before I got them. I'm not sure exactly how it works with fertilisation though, if she's been with my drake for 2 weeks, which drake will the eggs be fertilised by?

If the eggs are still too small and you think I've moved her nest/laying pattern around too much, then I won't let her sit on these ones, I just thought it might be interesting to see if the ducklings are coloured or not. My drake is white, but the drake she was with before I got her I think was coloured. She is white with the tiniest bit of black on the top of her head. Even if my drake is now the father of the eggs, since she has a tiny bit of black on her head, is there any chance the ducklings will have black on them? (I have no idea how the colour genetics work in ducks)

Sorry for all the questions, but I'd really appreciate some advice from someone more experienced so I do what's best for my duckies.

Your duck should lay more eggs than she normally might because you've been collecting them each day. Mine used to lay 28 eggs if I was collecting them before she went broody. (It was bizarre how she stopped at that number really). Mine were generally around the 80g mark so once she holds steady on that I would incubate those eggs.

You're looking to incubate eggs which are of a uniform shape and clean. (Don't wash or wipe eggs before incubation if you can at all avoid it). Avoid too large or too small eggs. You also want to make sure the health of your breeding ducks is at a premium to ensure the resulting young will be robust, healthy and strong enough to hatch naturally with a good hatch rate over all.

Generally its around the two week mark where you would expect fertility to have stopped when a duck has been away from a drake. Because she's been with another drake I'm really not sure who you might expect to be the father. Could be mixed? Colour wise it could be hard unless you know her genetics and your current drakes genetics. You might get coloured ducklings from them breeding together anyway if they have coloured parents or grandparents etc If you know their parentage I guess that will give you a better idea.

Good luck with your hatch...and with all the rain!