Making ducks or pullets lay

[Northern_bushrat]

We have some young Khaki Campbell ducks (hatched June 10th) and have been waiting for them to start laying, but no luck so far and, I fear, probably not until spring. We have an led lantern in the duckhouse to extend the daylight hours, and it's a small shack that keeps them comparatively warm. Does anyone know if there's something else we can do? If we were to put a store-bought egg in with them, do you think there'd be a chance to fool them into laying with it?

[CountryKitty]

Sorry to say, putting an egg in with them won't 'teach' them to lay--they just won't start till they reach physical maturity. In fact, if they peck at it out of curiosity, they may pick up the bad habit of eating eggs and will eat their own when they do lay.

If I remember correctly, the KC's I had a couple years ago started laying when they were 8 months old. If yours follow suit, you'll start seeing eggs in February.

[Northern_bushrat]

8 months is fairly late, isn't it? I thought they'd start laying somewhere between 16 and 24 weeks? But we probably got them too late in the year for that, there's barely 6 hours of natural daylight right now so that can't be very enticing.....

[AlchemyAcres]

Ducks need at least 14 hours of good light to lay well.

~Martin :)

[Northern_bushrat]

yeah, we have a wind-up LED lantern we hang in there, but it doesn't convince them that it's really light that long :(

[annabella1]

It is also better to extend the "daylight" hours in the early morning and letting the natural sunset occur. So they can go through the normal sunset ready to sleep pattern instead of suddenly no light. Once your KC's start to lay they are very prolific.