Selfsufficientish.com

One of my ducks has been living in the pampas grass for about 3 weeks, presumed sitting on eggs, but I can't get in to see as this grass is a giant affair. She came out once or twice a day for something to eat and a wash and brush up.

Well she's about got over her broodiness (although she didn't seem to be any different from normal unlike a broody hen!) and started coming back into the shed with the others at night.

Yesterday my OH found a dinner plate sized and shaped bit of 'nest' made out of dried pampas grass leaves all matted together with crushed egg shells and all sticky gooey in the middle with squashed egg, which he thinks may have come out of the bush stuck to her bottom ...... and OMG the reek! Nice bloke left it for me to pull apart to put in the compost. I nearly heaved and in fact I can still smell it right now that I'm typing about it.

Jeez, we have both a septic tank and a grease trap, and neither of them come close to this stench! Ooooooooh that must the worst thing I've ever smelt in my life.

OMG - I've only smelled rotten chicken eggs - it really is like no other smell and so unbelievably horrible!!! Are duck eggs worse - they start off stronger anyway.

I have a related question if you'll indulge me

We get duck eggs from a neighbour and they're usually fabulous.

A couple of months ago she brought us some and when we broke one of them the shell was much weaker, the yolk was blackened and the white was like water - but it didn't particularly smell. I have no idea what the problem was - had it stunk I would have thought it was an old egg put in by mistake. But she always dates them in pencil.

Fortunately I always break eggs into a cup before adding them to the others, having had the experience of a rotten egg before - or I'd have had to chuck the whole lot.

Any ideas what it was - and should I have told her?

It doesn't help, but the chemical responsible is hydrogen sulphide - the basis of all schoolboy stink-bombs. Nice, isn't it?

Mike

Green Aura wrote:OMG - I've only smelled rotten chicken eggs - it really is like no other smell and so unbelievably horrible!!! Are duck eggs worse - they start off stronger anyway.

I have a related question if you'll indulge me

We get duck eggs from a neighbour and they're usually fabulous.

A couple of months ago she brought us some and when we broke one of them the shell was much weaker, the yolk was blackened and the white was like water - but it didn't particularly smell. I have no idea what the problem was - had it stunk I would have thought it was an old egg put in by mistake. But she always dates them in pencil.

Fortunately I always break eggs into a cup before adding them to the others, having had the experience of a rotten egg before - or I'd have had to chuck the whole lot.

Any ideas what it was - and should I have told her?

I don't know about blackened yolks Maggie. I had the experience my first year with the ducks of suddenly, at this time of year, finding the yolks had gone a horrible khaki green! Asked on the forum and apparently a couple of wild plants can cause this (if they eat it of course) and to hens as well. Well we don't have those plants but someone suddenly came up with acorns - there's not much there on the internet about it but it is true, if they eat acorns the yolks turn this horrid colour - which is supposed to still be Ok to eat but as someone on the internet remarked, the colour of her cake turned out so vile she couldn't bring herself to eat it.

I don't think that's the problem given it was a few months ago and I don't think you have too many oak trees up there do you?

I think it is worth mentioning to her though.

We don't have trees, period! We're on a campaign to try to re-introduce some

I'll let her know when I see her next. The little blighters have pretty much stopped laying now so we're back to Spar eggs, at least they do organic. OH won't let me have livestock - we'll see who wins

Just a thought Green Aura, ducks eggs are really porous, could it be that they were, sitting in something rather longer than they should have and absorbed some of whatever it was they were sitting in , if you see what I mean