We have now been producing and eating our duck eggs for a few years and constantly marvel at the excellent results achieved with them, no matter what their use: omelettes are especially good, sponges are incredibly light and my pavlovas never stick to the paper anymore, although they do take longer to whisk. Master Chef Sue Lawrence makes the most wonderfull ice cream with them and some of her suggestions for cooking with them were given in her In Scotland On Sunday article about our ducks.
We have often been asked what the contents of a duck egg looks like; someone even wondered if the egg white was in fact green. As you can see from the photo it is actually very similar to any other egg but the white is very clear and the yolk is quite large (this photo has not been touched up the yolk really is this colour)
Although our duck eggs are predominantly white, we do get some ducks which lay blue eggs in various different shades. The reason for this is supposedly genetic; Khaki Campbell ducks were originally bred from Indian Runner ducks, which do lay blue eggs as a rule.
These are some of our Khaki Campbell ducks which we keep for egg production. The are housed in straw bedded sheds during the night and are free to roam the fields during the day. The ducks lay their eggs early in the morning, in purpose built nest boxes placed around their sheds. The duck sheds are bedded with fresh straw every night before the ducks are brought back inside. At the moment the birds can roam up to half a mile from their sheds, but this is dependant on having no fox problems. We use one of our Border Collie sheepdogs to round them up at night, although the majority of the ducks usually wander in of their own accord.
We have made several dams in a stream for the ducks , and there is nothing funnier than watching them as they spalsh and dive in their ponds just after they are let out for the day.
We like to think that our ducks are happy ducks!
I hope to add some of my favorite recipes using duck eggs to this page in the near future
