Cleaning dirty duck eggs?

[Anne W]

My ducks have started laying and I'm sure everyone with ducks is faced withthe same dilemma - do you wash them o rnot?

Now...chicken eggs can get dirty - but duck eggs get absolutely filthy!!! :shock: Surely you can't leave them like that - in the past I have had eggs from a couple of call ducks but now I have 2 aylsburys and 2 muscovies ....their eggs are huge - huge and filthy! I have tried mking sure their house is kept as clean as possible and now and again I will get a lovely clean (ish) egg but on the whole - no.

Can anybody advise me ? How long do others store their duck eggsfor?

 

[Tim]

I keep a heap of straw in the corner and one of my ducks makes it into a lovely deep nest which keeps the eggs reasonably clean but I'm just lucky with these ducks. Most of my Indian Runners would just lay anywhere in the house and they would get messy too.

For hatching, I store duck eggs up to a week before washing in a warm Brinsea incubation disinfectant mix. It must be done carefully though since you are washing away the natural bacterial defence the egg has. The main thing people do wrong is handle the eggs with mucky paws after cleaning them.. this puts bacteria back onto the shell. I use an antibacterial hand wash to stop this happening and have good results hatching them.

For eating, they keep a little less than chickens eggs - 3 weeks I think is the longest you should keep them but personally I wouldn't keep them for more than about 2. Wash in warm water if dirty before use, not before.

 

[Anne W]

Thanks Tim - that's just what I wanted to know. I have put a pile of straw in this morning funnily enough as one of them is making a 'scrape' and I am hoping at least one will make a nest out of it. The rest lay anywhere as you say!