If it is your first time keeping a duck, you might be surprised if your duck lays an egg without a drake. “How come my duck lays eggs without copulating with a drake?” you might exclaim. Yet, ducks are unique birds that can lay eggs without needing a male duck or drake. A duck needs a drake to have fertilized eggs from which ducklings can be born. Yet, the eggs that ducks lay without a drake are unfertilized. These eggs will not hatch and produce ducklings. It is only an egg cell.
Ducks, of course, will lay eggs without a drake around them. Besides, they don’t require a drake to produce those eggs. Nevertheless, if you want to propagate your ducks, you need to have the eggs fertilized by a drake. Remember that duck eggs are almost complete or developed before fertilization happens.
However, ducks don’t know beforehand whether those eggs they produce will get fertilized. But they nevertheless grow eggs and hope those eggs get fertilized.
Are the Eggs You Buy from Grocery Stores Fertilized?
The eggs you purchase from grocery stores are unfertilized. Ducks that have never mated produce these eggs. As such, they are unfertilized. Yet, ducks need a companion to keep themselves happy. So, more often, female ducks have drakes around them to keep them happy.
Domesticated ducks are byproducts of a continuous selective breeding process throughout the centuries. Humans have designed ducks to lay more eggs.
Hence, ducks can start laying eggs at six to seven months. Besides, domestic ducks lay an egg, whether mated or not, every twenty-four to forty-eight hours.
How Can Ducks Lay Eggs without a Drake?
As mentioned above, ducks will produce eggs whether they don’t mate with a drake. They make these eggs with the hope that they get fertilized by the sperms of the drakes. These eggs that are not yet fertilized are called half an egg and have the genes of their mother ducks.
Fertilization, however, happens when the duck mates with a drake. The eggs get fertilized by the sperm of the drake. The fertilized eggs have a zygote, and this fertilization happens in the duck’s viaduct called the infundibulum.
There, the ovum remains for thirty minutes until it gets fertilized. If the duck doesn’t mate, the egg remains unfertilized. The egg then moves to the magnum developing a white part and eggshell. It remains there in the duck’s uterus for twenty hours until the duck lays it.
How Frequent Can You Expect the Duck to Lay Unfertilized Egg?
You can expect ducks to lay eggs every twenty-four to forty-eight hours. So, you can almost expect an egg every day. Yet, the breed of the duck also factors in the frequency of the laying of an egg. The Cayuga, buff duck, and Blue Swedish would lay eggs more frequently. They average around 180 eggs per year. On the other, ducks raised for their meat, like the Mallard, can only lay up to 60 eggs yearly. But some varieties of ducks, like the White Layer, can lay up to 300 eggs per year.
Some ducks, however, are meant to produce meat and eggs. The Khaki Campbell is one example. It can produce 210 eggs or more on average.
Other factors also influence the frequency of egg laying, like the size of the birds, age, nutrition, and emotional aspect.
How Would You Know If Duck Eggs Have Been Fertilized?
There is a straightforward way to know if the egg of your duck is fertilized. This method is called candling. Candling uses a bright light to let you glimpse the inside of the egg. This method is effective though it is already an ancient method. It gets called candling because they used the light from the candle in the past.
Nowadays, however, we got more powerful lights designed to generate more light. You will notice the egg’s yolk and albumen as you pass the light through the egg. Thus, you can distinguish fertilized from unfertilized eggs by looking at the yoke and the albumen.
Do Wild Ducks Also Lay Unfertilized Eggs?
Yes, just like the domesticated ducks, wild ducks also lay unfertilized eggs. Yet, in the wild, ducks usually live along with drakes. So, wild ducks will not have any lack of a partner. Hence, they frequently lay fertilized eggs.
Wild ducks that could not find a mate will indeed lay unfertilized eggs. However, domestic ducks get farmed for their eggs. These ducks get bred to lay more eggs without needing drakes.
Conclusion
Knowing that ducks can lay eggs without mating, you will no longer get surprised if your ducks start laying eggs even without a drake. I, for one, got astonished when I first raised ducks in my backyard. I didn’t have drakes before, but my ducks still manage to lay eggs.
I thought my ducks were immaculately conceived or, by a stroke of luck, got impregnated by a drake. Yet, ducks are unique creatures, and they could lay eggs without the benefit of a mate. So, don’t get surprised if your ducks lay eggs immaculately.
