[nathan104]

Ok, this seems crazy to me. I have a female Pekin and a male mallard. Waited for her to start laying and seemed like she would never start. Finally, I found her nest under a bunch of briars on the side of the pond. It had six whole eggs in it and a bunch of broken shell laying around it. I cleaned the nest out as I didnt know how long they had been in there and waited to start collecting eggs. Well, she never layed anymore in there. Looked all over for weeks trying to find where she had moved her nest but couldnt find anything. We have a duck house on the pond levy with a nest box in it but although we have seen her sitting in it, no eggs. So, today we were down by the pond and saw an egg underwater a few feet out. Starting looking around the pond and have found 7 eggs underwater spread out all around the edge of the pond about 3-4 feet out from the edge and all about 6-8 inches underwater. SO, now we know where she is laying but this just wont cut it.

Anyone have any experience with this?

 

[Cyngbaeld]

Best thing to do is to pen her with a nice shelter that has nesting material and a kiddy pool. For some reason she is not feeling comfortable about laying in a nest near the pond.

 

[GrannyCarol]

Yah, seems likely that her nest was raided and she's nervous. If you don't want her to brood, lock her up at night until about 9 am, she will usually lay before 9 and can go out for the day. Keep her locked up for a few days and feed her at night... she'll come in for dinner and be safer overall.

 

[nathan104]

Thanks, I will try that for a few days. Both the ducks usually meet us at the chicken house in the evening when we close them up to get a little corn from us anyways. Could just close them up in with the chickens unless it would be better to keep them seperate. They go in and out of the chicken house all day for feed anyways. the pond is only about 50ft from the coop.

 

[Cyngbaeld]

Yes, close them up with the chickens. You can put a rubber feed pan in the chicken pen for duck water if there's not enough room for anything else.

 

[Saltysteele]

this may be a stupid question, but are you sure she is laying them in the pond, or just on the edge and they are rolling/getting kicked into the water?

maybe by fencing her in with a nest of the type you are trying to get her laying in at the pond, she will get used to that and accept it.

 

[GrannyCarol]

Another note - to help my ducks learn where to lay (hah, good luck with that!), I put a few golf balls in the nesting area. It seems to help some. Some ducks are just random and leave them all over with no idea that there might be a better place to lay them. If you lock them up at night, most ducks are done laying by 9 am, so I keep mine in until then and most eggs are in the pen or house, very few out in the yard.

 

[kenworth]

Our ducks would occassionally lay in the streams. Never thought too much of it other than to wade out and retrieve them. I just figured they were like little kids, were relaxed, and laid without thinking twice about it.