2017 Egg totals
It’s time guys. The results are in. The 2017 egg totals! When we first got our ducks I wasn’t expecting to get many eggs before the next spring. We picked up our ducklings mid May and it takes 6 months before they start laying. Since everything I’ve read says birds don’t lay well in the winter I figured we might get a few eggs in November and then it would stop for a while. Boy was I surprised.
(Iris's Clutch)
Many homesteaders say it’s important to keep track of everything on your homestead and I completely agree. I decided to do this with excel because I already had it. Eventually, I would like a binder with all of our info.
As you can see in the picture above we ended up with a total of 196 eggs for 2017. 11 of those were shelless as the duck’s cycles became regular. So roughly 185 edible eggs, though we did feed some of the shelless ones to the dogs. What is remarkable is the jump in egg totals every month. We more than doubled egg production every single month. Even with a hen laying on a clutch of eggs for the entire month of December and 6 out of our 7 hens were new layers.
I also kept notes on the eggs. When only Iris was laying I notated that plus whenever we found a double yolk or shelless egg. We are definitely happy with our decision to have ducks and plan to expand our flock in 2018.
P.S. I’ve never mentioned this but we did buy 2 more ducks at the end of November. One male and another female to vary our flock’s genetics. Grand total: 2 Drakes and 8 hens. We do plan to keep some of Iris’s ducklings when those hatch as well.
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Enjoy the vote and reward!
Wow great start! I hope your 2018 is very eggventful =D
It's been a fun year!
Keeping track of your production is important. You need someone who loves to stay organized to do it. Good post! Thanks!
That's me haha! I also keep track of all of our expenses
That's very interesting. We're hoping to get into the egg-citing adventure this spring.
I HIGHLY recommend muscovy ducks 🙂 We haven't had any issues with them except they like to walk over to the neighbors yard. No illnesses and none of our original 6 ducklings died. It's been a pleasant experience
Good for you guys. LOVE THIS POST. Happy New Year my Friend
Happy New Year to you too!
Great record keeping! I'm not so good at that. Every once in a while i start tallying eggs and then forget... What better time to start than now though! Looking forward to some duckling pics :)
You definitely should! I add the number of eggs daily after collecting and notate which day was the last time I updated so I don't forget. I also plan to do this for produce next year, how many ducklings hatch (including the hatch rate) and our meat production!
Good thinking! Maybe I'll get a dayplanner and do the same. I really do like the idea of keeping track of things, im just so forgetful!
I would like to get this soon. I prefer having a hard copy of things! https://www.etsy.com/listing/215138291/2018-printable-homestead-management?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=homesteading%20binder&ref=sr_gallery_4
I totally agree and it really helps to be able to look back year after year and see the results or improvements you've made. We keep pretty good records on our homestead.
Good