AUSTRALIAN POULTRY FORUM™

Hi!

I have a pile of Muscovy ducks, and while we let a few of them occasionally hatch their eggs, we are wanting them for their eggs as well. Here is the problem I'm having....

The ducks start laying their eggs, and like my chooks, I collect them straight away. However, with the ducks, they will lay their eggs for maybe 2 weeks, and then they go clucky, and start to sit on the nest, even tho there is no eggs there! I've had a number of ducks sit on nothing for over a month ! Most of them have stopped being clucky, but one is still sitting on nothing.

Even tho I have a few boxes for them to lay in, they seem to lay in the same nest and so I'll sometimes get 3-5 eggs in the same box. So when one duck goes clucky, the others just lay on top of her, and I have to fight her to get the eggs. I've even had a second duck go clucky and sit... on the other duck !

Because I'm only getting about 2 weeks of eggs out of each duck before she stops again, I was trying to leave about 2-3 eggs (some fake) in the nest by way of trying to convince them to keep laying, but rather than continue laying, they just go clucky. And removing the eggs doesn't stop them sitting.

Has anyone else had/have this problem? Any ideas to increase the egg laying/stop the cluckiness?

Cheers

Short answer is you need a duck other than a muscovy, the kharki campbell duck is a good layer as long as you don't mind blueish shelled eggs as are harlequins and pekins.

How good are they for meat tho? That is the main reason for having the Muscovy's, as well as the no quack factor. We let enough breed for eating, and then use the eggs from the rest.

Im sure some strains of a breed have a tendency to go broody more than others. If you're breeding with birds who go broody easily then possibly you are going to end up more and more birds going broody quickly?? They aren't an egg laying breed so this is never going to be a strong feature of them, but two weeks is not very long at all is it?

Mine used to lay 28 eggs on the dot (with me collecting them every day) before going broody. 14 eggs is not muc at all.

I think you probably need to have more than one 'sin bin' in place so as a duck goes broody you can move her into this until she's debrooded. They can take a couple of days to come back in to lay, but if you aren't ready for them to sit on eggs you don't seem to have much choice. If you let them sit on nothing its just delaying getting them back to laying again. It also takes a bit out of them so they can become susceptible to health problems. Good luck!

Mine have never laid that many at one time I've always thought it curious they only laid that many whereas everyone else says about 28.

And as for 'sin binning' them, well, two of the worst, we removed from their nests one night - out of their pen, NEXT DOOR into our yard, and in a small but low enclosure in our back yard. Well that night one of them got back to her nest! That meant, navigating her way out of the pen she was in, out of our yard, which has a 6ft tin fence (I think she got under it somewhere) Under the fence into our neighbours yard where we keep our birds, back into the pen, past all the drakes, and back onto her nest!
We couldn't believe it when we found her there! Talk about a homing device! And a few weeks later the other duck also managed to get home as well, tho she had stopped trying to sit which was a relief.

I'm just curious to know why a duck might go, and then stay broody, even tho there are no eggs there!

It's not so much the sight of eggs which sends a duck broody but the feeling they've laid enough eggs and now they should sit on them. Its a pretty strong drive as you've seen.

You might need to get yourself a cage which you can have up off the ground so air can get in and underneath the ducks and not only cool them down but just make them uncomfortable enough they wil eventually go off the brood.
They won't be able to get out of a cage...Im fairly sure

You won't be able to stop them going broody again and potentially it will happen quickly because they are determined to raise ducklings while the hormones are telling them to.

It could be interesting to find out how many eggs other people's muscovies lay before going broody to compare them to your own. If everyone elses are laying double the egg number before going broody it might be time to replace your stock?? Have you ever checked out the Australian Muscovy Forum? There is muscovy information galore! http://www.australianmuscovy.com/index/index.php

To sit a duck needs to get in the broody mood and from what I understand its at the end of all the eggs she knows she is going to lay then she incubates the eggs. From my understanding they have a biological system that tells them how many eggs they will lay and when to sit on them. Correct me if I am wrong

I agree they have a biological urge to go broody, but I don't think its set to an 'exact' number of eggs. If I left my duck eggs mount up in the nest they would go broody a lot quicker than if I collected them every day. You can get a few more eggs by collecting every day, but I guess the actual number would depend on the individual bird and breed.

Great info here, Thanks!

Another question then... Another problem I have with my ducks egg laying is, that they start laying their eggs, and so I take them, but some of them don't go broody- they lay half dozen to a dozen eggs, and then just stop. No going broody. They don't lay elsewhere, as it is a very open pen and I would see them. Is it normal for the ducks to not go broody if her eggs are taken?

I always thought that muscovy's were really good egg layers, and am just suprised that none of my ducks have ever laid as many as what people have said, so I'm wondering what the problem/s might be?

Thanks again for the great info.

Muscovies are a meat breed of duck and are definitely not known for their egg laying. Indian Runners and Campbells are probably known as the best egg layers. Within different breeds there might be particularly good or bad layers though.

Regarding why yours stop laying, Im not sure. Do you leave fake eggs in their nest boxes to fool them in to thinking their eggs aren't being 'taken'? They can get a bit stressed trying to find a 'safe' place to lay and will find anywhere which isn't a nestbox if their eggs are being taken. As you said though they can't be laying elsewhere so I'm really not sure.

Do they have fresh food and water always available? Do they also have access to green feed?