Eggs in the box!!!

[bmc]

Well, my daughter's and I put out our first wood duck box last spring on my dad's pond, it's about 3-4 acres, but we didn't have any visitors. I checked it today and lo and behold there's 8 eggs! A couple of them were tan colored and most of them were light blue looking, kinda' like robin egg color. So, any idea what kind of duck is using the box? We've seen wood ducks and goldeneyes on the pond, so I'm assuming it's one of them. I've also read that mergansers and buffleheads will nest in trees. What's with the 2 different colored eggs? Any idea when they will hatch, rough estimate? I'm gonna try to sit across the pond from the house one evening next week with the binocs and see who's using the box. My daughter's were ecstatic, if they had their way, they'd camp near that box till the little ducklings hit the ground. LOL

Thanks,

Brian

[koWALLEYEski]

My guess would be wood ducks. Since they are the most common to use the boxes. Not sure on the diff colors? Good Luck figuring it out!

[LABS4ME]

A lot of ducks are "dumpers", meaning they will lay their eggs in the box for the woodie to hatch. Ducks that frequently will use the box are Woodies, Bufflehead, Hooded Mergansers and I heard Goldeneyes. There have been reports of up to 15 eggs in a box that will all get hatched by Mamma Woodie. Don't know which are which color... get a field guide to bird identification at the library and see what color the eggs are for each species.

Good Luck!

Ken

[BIGSCHLAG]

Woodduck eggs are light tan and somewhat see through. When first laid the shell can be very transparent, especially against a flash light. Hooded Merganser Eggs are very white. They are also larger than wooduck eggs. They are very oval, almost round sometimes. They also have one of the thickest shells of allthe ducks. Common goldeneyes eggs are light green to very light blueish green. They are about the size of a larege chicken egg. Common Merganser eggs are ussually will not nest in a standard woodduck nest box because the hole

is too small. There eggs are about the size of a chicken egg but more oblong. They are off white actually kind of similar to woodducks but much lareger. Buffleheads eggs look like miniture goldeneyes. Actually kind of big when you consider the size of the female. They rarely if ever nest here. Yes they seem to be every where around the last week or two but they won't start laying eggs for another few weeks. Sounds like you have a mix of woodducks and goldeneyes. They both have the same incubation period and often are raised together.

[BIGSCHLAG]

I forgetto mention they will hatch in about 27-29 days depending how good the hen sits onthe eggs. It will proably be at least 7 to 10 days before someonestarts sitting on the eggs. More than likely it will be a woodduck. Early goldeneye eggs are usually dumped into other nests more so thanwoodducks do to others. Baby goldeneyes are black and white versus yello and black for wooducks.

[BLACKJACK]

I usually get one or two hooded mergansers nesting in my wood duck boxes. As was mentioned, both mergansers and wood duck hens do a lot of 'dump nesting' where multiple hens will lay in one box. I've monitored some boxes by my house and the egg count will go up two or three a day. Then one hen will claim it and start sitting on the eggs and the other hens are forced to go off to find another nest.

As a side note, I've watched mixed broods of wood ducks and mergansers. The little duckies will be skimming along eating bugs on the surface while the little mergansers will going along diving down and disapearing/reappearing. Neat!

[Dean Schellinger]

That is really cool. I went out with my uncle one day 2 springs ago and looked through all his wood duck houses. We checked out 6-7 and one had a hen merganzer sitting on the eggs when we lifted the lid. Its cool, watching the little ducklings is fun too man.

[bmc]

I did some reading in a duck book I have and it says wood duck eggs are beige in color and goldeneye eggs are a light blue green colored. It looks like I got both in the box. It'll be interesting to see which hen hatches them, if they hatch.

Brian

[koWALLEYEski]

This is really interesting to me! That blows my mind that the hens will lay eggs in another box with eggs already in it. I remember seeing woodies in the spring after the hatch with different colored birdies behind the mama. Didnt really thing much about it then. Make sure you post when they hatch. It will be fun to read what you got in there.

[bmc]

I went out and checked the box again tonight. I tapped on the side and out flew a hen goldeneye. She flew a couple circles around the pond, "quacking" a few times. I quickly opened the side door and counted at least 12 eggs. They all look like goldeneye eggs now, so maybe the ones I thought were wood duck eggs had been freshly laid. I'm going to leave the box alone now and just keep an eye on it from binocular distance. There were also some mallards on the pond so next spring I'm going to set up a mallard her house platform. I'm also going to set up another wood duck box on the opposite side of the pond and see if any woodies take up residence next spring.

Brian

[iceman16]

we put up a wood duck house about three years ago at our cabin in stillwater and never had ducks in it. this year i climbed up to see if anything was in there and opened the door and out popped a woody just about knocked me off the tree. good to see that some woodys are staying in the house. looked to be about 7-8 eggs.

[wooduck26]

I have a Woody nesting in my box behind my house in Oakdale, cant wait till they hatch..........

[BLACKJACK]

Checked one of my wood duck boxes last week, ma duck wasn't there but there was one hatched duckling, with a whole bunch of eggs left in the nest. Came back two days later to check and all the eggs had hatched and they were all gone from the box, except for one poor little devil that hadn't made the jump. Survival of the fittest I guess. Was glad to see that ma duck had come back and finished the job and led her brood to the pond.

[Mark Christianson]

We had one of the houses at home hatch on Sunday this past weekend, and they came out Monday.

See my post with my trail cam pics in this forum.

Here are 5 eggs she left behind. They all were just yokes and no development. She successfully hatched out over a dozen of the other ones though.

[doser]

Cool!!! Checked one of my boxes two weeks ago and opened the door very slowly just a crack and there was momma looking right at me. Closed it slowly and said "you go girl hatch those little ones."