Ducks can be smart in their own way, these animals can play games with you, understand commands, play with their toys, and ask you for cuddles
With all this intelligence you may be wondering if these birds will know if their eggs are fertile. This article looks into it
Do ducks know if their eggs are fertile?
We as humans have learned how to tell if a duck egg is fertile or not, but unfortunately, ducks themselves do not know how to tell if their eggs are fertile
From the mother duck’s point of view, there is no way of knowing early on if her eggs are fertile or not, but she will realize that her eggs aren’t fertile a little while into the incubation process.
A mother duck will sit on her clutch of eggs whether they have been fertilized or not, this is simply her instinct.
In the wild, her eggs are usually fertilized by a male duck and once the incubation process is done the ducklings will hatch, but this doesn’t always happen in domestic settings.
Female ducks do not need drakes in order to lay eggs. A female duck in human care can and will lay eggs without a drake, however, these eggs will not hatch into ducklings. Unfortunately, the mother duck does not know this
The mother duck will sit on any clutch of eggs, thinking that they hatch, but these unfertilized eggs simply won’t hatch into ducklings
However, if the eggs become rotten, or simply take too long to hatch, then the mother duck will roll these eggs away from the nest to keep the eggs from bursting in the nest, making a mess, and thus attracting a predator
If you want to figure out if a duck’s egg is fertile then you can candle the bird’s egg.
Candling an egg entails shining a light against the egg while in a dark room. If you can see veins in the egg then the bird in the egg is growing and the egg has been fertilized. If you do not see any veins then the egg is likely not fertilized
You can also assume a duck’s eggs are fertilized if there is a drake available to her.
If you enjoyed this article then you may also be interested in other duck related articles. Here are some articles that you may be interested in: Why Did My Duck Die?, Why Do Ducks Keep Coming To My House, Duck Imprinting On Dog, Duck Imprinting On Humans, How To Tell That A Duck Is Stressed, How To Get Ducks To Lay Eggs In Winter