Duck egg?
August 31, 2009
***Updated at bottom*** plus a new update: 9/2/09***
Today, when S. was raking the litter in the chicken coop, he found another chicken egg. He also found this:
Unknown egg on left, chicken egg on right
It's bigger than the chicken eggs, and a color that we haven't seen before. It's cream colored with light brown speckles. He found it under the roosts (the chicken eggs have really been very reliably in the nestboxes.) Could this be a duck egg? I wasn't expecting them to start laying until spring, but this is pretty different from the chicken eggs. Plus, it's consistent with where a duck might choose to lay it---in a sheltered area (the coop, under the roosts). Then again, it COULD be a weird looking chicken egg...but for now I don't think I'll add it to the chicken egg counter.
***Today, there was another brown egg, and another one of these weird speckled ones...in the same place as the other one....Now, I'm pretty sure--not positive, mind you--but pretty sure that two out of our three ducks are drakes...which makes it a little bit harder to believe that it's a duck egg since they were laid so close in time to each other and they would be duck-pullet eggs...although we don't know how long that first one was there before we found that....sooo...for now they stay in the "other" counter. But I may move them a bit later...who knows. They could be chicken eggs after all...
***Newer update: 9/2/09*** Today there were two more eggs, a brown one and a lighter, speckled, one. Only this time, the speckled one was the same size as the brown one. Aha. That taken together with three in a row (even if we had two hens and one drake, the newly laying ducks wouldn't be laying 3 eggs in such a close time period since they would have just started laying) kind of rules out the duck egg theory. They're probably eggs from the White Rocks. So I've moved them all to the same egg counter. Wow--that means we're up to 23 already.
Today, when S. was raking the litter in the chicken coop, he found another chicken egg. He also found this:
Unknown egg on left, chicken egg on rightIt's bigger than the chicken eggs, and a color that we haven't seen before. It's cream colored with light brown speckles. He found it under the roosts (the chicken eggs have really been very reliably in the nestboxes.) Could this be a duck egg? I wasn't expecting them to start laying until spring, but this is pretty different from the chicken eggs. Plus, it's consistent with where a duck might choose to lay it---in a sheltered area (the coop, under the roosts). Then again, it COULD be a weird looking chicken egg...but for now I don't think I'll add it to the chicken egg counter.
***Today, there was another brown egg, and another one of these weird speckled ones...in the same place as the other one....Now, I'm pretty sure--not positive, mind you--but pretty sure that two out of our three ducks are drakes...which makes it a little bit harder to believe that it's a duck egg since they were laid so close in time to each other and they would be duck-pullet eggs...although we don't know how long that first one was there before we found that....sooo...for now they stay in the "other" counter. But I may move them a bit later...who knows. They could be chicken eggs after all...
***Newer update: 9/2/09*** Today there were two more eggs, a brown one and a lighter, speckled, one. Only this time, the speckled one was the same size as the brown one. Aha. That taken together with three in a row (even if we had two hens and one drake, the newly laying ducks wouldn't be laying 3 eggs in such a close time period since they would have just started laying) kind of rules out the duck egg theory. They're probably eggs from the White Rocks. So I've moved them all to the same egg counter. Wow--that means we're up to 23 already.
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I agree, it is too different to go on the chicken egg counter. It would be great if it was a duck egg. Maybe they have 2 separate laying cycles? Have you seen other ducks hanging around that area?
Well, technically they're probably just about old enough to be laying. This is about the age the chickens started laying...so...
From what I've read, ducks tend to lay most heavily in the spring (some varieties only lay at all in the spring, while others can lay up to 300 eggs a year--which is more like chicken quantities if you ask me)...so it is possible.
No, we've never seen any of the ducks in the chicken coop before--although we have seen them near the door.
If it IS a duck egg (which it likely is) I hope they start laying them in their duck house! :-)
Hey why'd you date the update as 2-2-09?? We didn't have chickens then and I don't think these were even hatched yet. Cool trick if they were though :-)
S
Doh! Thanks--I fixed that. I meant September 2 :-)