They poop a lot.
And in theory, they lay a lot of eggs. In a perfect world, we'd be getting a dozen eggs a day.
It's not a perfect world.
During the winter they take a break from laying. We used to think it had something to do with the light, but after this year, I'm pretty sure it has a lot more to do with what's available to eat. All the snow cover this year has meant slim pickings on the ground. We feed them table scraps and chicken feed, too, but they won't lay until they can scratch around in the yard and creeks a bit, too.
Finally, finally! they've started to lay again. We're getting about four eggs a day and they seem to be picking up speed. Fast. Yesterday we found three duck eggs in the chicken yard frozen in the ice. The silly things would prefer to lay there than in their nests in the coop. The warm eggs melt enough ice to cradle them, then the ice freezes solid and we can't get them out without breaking them [though they usually freeze, swell and break on their own first.]This blue egg is from Larkus, one of our Americaunas. Her eggs are very thin shelled and lately have had a ring of tiny bumps around the middle. It's likely that when things green up again, the bumps will go away and her eggs will be smooth again.
