Duck Byproducts

The fruits of your labor

Now that you have successfully raised your ducklings into full grown quackers you can start reaping the benefits of being a duck person.

Eggs

The most obvious thing you will get if you have any girls are eggs. Ducks don’t normally lay in their first year, but once they start laying it can be prolific. When they start you should get one egg a day. Unlike chickens, ducks can lay eggs in the winter. They will probably stop laying when the weather gets cold and they grow their winter feathers. Just because they can lay eggs in the winter doesn’t mean that they will. The eggs you get from ducks are usually larger than chicken eggs and have a thicker shell. (They are bigger birds after all.) Considering where an eggs comes from you will want to at least wash the eggs. That will remove a natural protective coating from the egg, but if you refrigerate the eggs they should be good for a month or so. (Fun Fact: chicken eggs you get from the grocery store are already weeks old.)

In the case that you are getting too many eggs, congratulations! There are machines you can get to help with the washing. We use (but are not sponsored by) The Little Egg Scrubber. It is a neat little machine that fits in our sink and can clean 3 eggs at a time. Just run some hot water (115 degrees Fahrenheit/46 degrees Celsius) over the eggs, drizzle some dish soap, and you will have clean eggs in a few minutes.

If you are getting way too many eggs that you don’t know what to do with. Congratulations again! Look into your local laws and see if there is something like Colorado’s Cottage Food Act. That has allowed us to start a business and sell our excess duck eggs. You will need to follow strict washing AND sanitizing rules in order to sell your eggs.

Duck eggs have a different protein in them from chicken eggs which allows some people who can’t eat chicken to eat duck eggs. Duck eggs are also great for baking! Any baked good that needs to rise will be helped along by using duck eggs.

Fertilizer

All the time your ducks are in the pen they will be eating, swimming, and you guessed it, pooping! Don’t let that go to waste! (pun definitely intended) In the spring you can dig out all of the fertilizer your ducks have made and spread it in your vegetable patch. We have friends that ask for our fertilizer every spring because it gives them bumper crops.

More Ducks!

If you have boys and girls and don’t take the eggs you could let them raise their own ducklings. (No more stinky bath tub!) You can let your girls go broody and let them hatch their own eggs. If you are lucky two girls will sit on the same egg and help raise the duckling. If you are unlucky the mother will just wander off and not sit on the egg. It is just up to the individual duck on what she wants to do. Although Muscovy girls are known for being great mothers, while Indian Runner duck girls are normally lousy mothers. If you have a mixed flock of Muscovies and Mallards just remember that the duckling could be a mule.