Off-Taste In My Duck Meat and Eggs

We harvested our first duck a month back, and it had a bit of an off-taste, and not in a good way. We've eaten duck many times before, and it never had this taste. This morning we happily brought in our first duck egg, and it tasted AWFUL. We love duck eggs, and buy them frequently, and have always enjoyed the taste. But this egg was atrocious. It had the same off-flavor as the meat, but much, MUCH stronger. It was very nasty. Are our ducks sick? Is there something they could be eating that makes their eggs (and, to a lesser extent, meat) taste like this? I've tried searching the web, but am not coming up with any results. Our 9 (now 8, one got taken by predator this morning) have a large (1700 sqft) enclosure and eat "Scratch and Peck Feeds" (http://www.scratchandpeck.com/product/naturally-free-grower/). We change their drinking water twice a day, but their swimming water is really deep (500 + gallons) and we sometimes take too long in changing it. Maybe they're drinking the water and that's making their eggs nasty? I never see them in there, though... Any ideas?

Thank you for any and all help!

Edit, June 7th, 2017: Various things that could be causing nasty flavor in your eggs:

(1) The genetics of your ducks not being able to digest Omega-3 fats, and so their eggs taste fishy. Solutions for that are reducing flax meal, fish meal, or other omega-3 sources in your ducks feed. Fermenting feed, or even just getting it wet can also aid in their digestion of those fatty acids.

(2) You washed your eggs wrong, and literally that nasty flavor came into your egg from OUTSIDE your egg. Make sure to wash with HOT water, and NOT cold.

This is an absolutely off-the-wall guess; Are ducks susceptible to anything similar to pigs / boar taint?

I don't have an answer for the off taste. Just want to say my ducks are kept like yours and no problems with flavor.

I've eaten ducks and their eggs from some pretty icky water, and they tasted fine.

"Atrocious" sounds nasty. And really disheartening
Does the taste remind you of anything? Fish, dirt, manure, 'off' meat etc
I assume ducks are like chickens in the way their eggs take on flavours from their diet-
I've eaten some unpleasantly fishy chicken eggs...
I don't know about the meat though, I've only tasted taint in large feral animals.

When I went to turn their bedding (a job my husband usually does but hasn't gotten around to much recently because he's been working a lot of over time), I noticed what the flavor tasted like-it tasted like their bedding/old poop smells!

I'm HOPING that the reason the duck meat tasted bad was that my husband waited a day before taking out the intestines when he "harvested" it (first time butchering), and so maybe that imparted the flavor (it was pretty mild), and maybe the duck egg tasted like that because we accidentally cracked it open before washing it, but cooked it because we were so happy to have our first egg. We'll have to wait until our little lady lays another egg to find out...

It's reasuring to know that the water hasn't imparted flavor to your eggs. We're drainging the pond today, just in case. I'm also having my husband throw down a lot more pine shavings to dry out their bedding and hopefully that will help, too. (I can't do the bedding because we don't want our baby to breath in the dust, and I have no where to put him other than my back) Hopefully my husband will be able to make time every day to maintain some healthy bedding, as it is getting pretty funky.

I'm hoping it's just the bedding or bad food handling that's causing the flavor, and that they're not sick! They look fine, but I'm new to ducks...

I've heard that some people can taste a fishiness in eggs when the bird has been eating a fish meal based feed. We feed a fish meal based one but I have never noticed any off flavors. It does seem that the feed can impart off flavors so that's a possibility.

Our bedding has gotten pretty bad but I haven't noticed any off flavors due to it. I do wash the eggs well before cracking them open.

I do not have experience with ducks. I do have a good friend who Hates mustard because of growing up on a dairy farm where one of her jobs was to go through pastures and yank any mustard - apparently it was pretty much guaranteed to ruin the milk if the cows ate it.

Point being that some of the things animals eat will definitely impact the way their products taste.

You might be having an issue with some degree of poo contamination, but it also might be that whatever they are eating that makes them taste bad is also giving a specific odor to their excrement. I would not rule out a dietary source of the problem.

I am no expert but I'd say that the off flavor of the meat was from leaving the guts in the bird for 24 hours. From my understanding -- you want to get the meat cooled down asap and leaving the guts in greatly slows that process and thus allows for bacterial contamination.

As for the egg...I'm less confident to say what caused the off flavor in the egg...that I would say is probably from something the duck ate.

I am going to guess it actually wasn't the guts. The reason I say this is that the same flavor that was in the meat was in the eggs. That implies it has something to do with their diet. I'd suggest taking a couple days to just follow them around and see what they are getting into. There may be some particular plant or garbage pile that has their attention regularly that they are getting something unpleasant from. The odds are pretty good that they are frequently eating something you didn't realize and if you eliminate that, the flavor will go away over time as it leaves their system. That said, I'd never wait a day before gutting an animal.

I still really have no update. My husband tasted the second egg that came out, and it still had the flavor but not as bad. We now have 1.5 dozen of their eggs in the fridge but haven't eaten any more because (1) my husband doesn't want me to eat them until we know they're better, as I'm breastfeeding, and (2) My husband is still wary of them and has been putting off cooking them up for himself--he had a horrid cold for three days, which didn't help. We also haven't had time to do another slaughter (though we really need to--we have 6 males and 2 females! )

Hopefully I'll have an update soon. I don't know what they'd be eating, other than maybe their own droppings, that would give it that flavor. They just have salmon berries, blackberries, and grass in there... Unless maybe all that stuff has an off flavor because it's growing over our septic sand filter that was leaking last year... ::

3male duck for every female duck is pretty bad. Even if you dont eat the ducks you need to kill 5 of those male duck. What you have there is almost animal cruelty. What you are tasting in the eggs from the female is stress and fear.

If you have 6 males you need 30 females, if you dont the females will live a constant life of misery, fear and stress and that is what you are tasting. PLEASE kill 5 of those male ducks and get 4 more female ones.

We definitely intend to kill off at least 4 of those drakes. We got all of them as ducklings, not knowing their gender. There were 10. We got really bad odds and ended up with 7 males and 3 females. We already ate one male, and a coyote or bobcat ate one female. I check every day for adult female ducks to buy, but there aren't any. My husband has had to work lots of overtime, so he hasn't had time to slaughter more males. Whenever I'm out there, though, they never seem aggressive, but I know they must be, as we've found the females have flown their enclosure three times. Thankfully, they have a large run, but I am definitely not happy with the arrangement, and can't wait until my husband has time to slaughter the males (not something I can really do myself while carrying a one year old). He should have time in about a week. Until then, my hands are are sadly tied .

Sounds like you have a one year old much like my now 20 month old was! She didn't want to be worn on my back at all! Do you have any bits of fencing or bird netting around that you could use to fence off the males from the females within the pen? I know it'd be tricky with shelter/food/water ideally being duplicated but the ladies would appreciate the relief!

I couldn't get the link for your feed source to work but my first thought was that if it is not a specific waterfowl food and is designed for chickens your ducks will be deficient in niacin. You can easily remedy this by adding brewers yeast to their food.

Update! My husband has started eating the eggs again, and notes no off flavor! Yay! So, it was either contaminated when we cracked it open without cleaning it, or emptying their pond helped. He also slaughtered our biggest male (all there was time for ) and we'll be cooking up the duck tomorrow or the day after, and I'll report back on the meat flavor then.

Katy Whitby-last wrote:I couldn't get the link for your feed source to work but my first thought was that if it is not a specific waterfowl food and is designed for chickens your ducks will be deficient in niacin. You can easily remedy this by adding brewers yeast to their food.

We added brewers yeast when they were younger, as the makers of the feed say there is sufficient niacin for adults, but not growing ducklings. THank you for pointing it out, though, because we didn't know that when we first started purchasing it (co-op employee told us it was good for ducks), and one of our ducklings started limping, which led us to research and find the feed didn't have enough niacin for ducklings!

Today we cooked up the duck my husband slaughtered, and it's delicious! No off-taste at all! So, the previous bad taste was either it was the icky water it was drinking, or the fact that my husband left the entrails inside it for a day. I'm leaning toward the latter. Either way, I'm happy the nasty tastes are gone from the eggs and meat. Thank you, everyone, for your suggestions and help!

I finally figured out what was causing the off-flavor! It was reduced for quite a while, but still there was a lingering aftertaste in our eggs, especially the yokes. The eggs were palatable, but not delicious. About a month ago, I started fermenting my duck feed (Scratch and Peck), and changed nothing else. WHABAM! The off taste is gone! The eggs are creamy and delicious and half almost a nutty flavor! I don't know exactly what it was that was in the feed, giving the eggs and off-flavor. But, whatever it was is detroyed by feremting the feed. Yay!

So, if any of you are getting weird off-flavors in your poultry eggs, try fermenting the feed! It just might get rid of the flavor, while at the same time giving you healthier, stronger eggs at about 2/3rds the cost (fermenting makes the feed more absorbable by their little bodies, so they need 1/3 to 1/2 less).

Whoa, weird! Glad to hear it's sorted, and thanks for the update.

Bit concerning about the feed in unfermented form though, I wonder what it is...

How long do you ferment the feed for?

I'm thinking it's probably the fish meal, as that has been known to give an "off-flavor" to eggs. I also noticed that the off-flavor came back just a smidge yesterday, coinciding with getting to to bottom of our bag of feed, where more of the meal naturally settles (we stir the dry food daily...and by "we" I mean my two year old who uses it as a sort of "sensory bin" to scoop and dump with his construction toys).

If it's not the fish meal, it may be one of the vitamins. Hmmm, since I now am pretty sure the flavor is from the feed, maybe I should just email the company and ask their input. I'm kind of wondering why that didn't occur to me sooner!

I got a response from one of the people at Scratch and Peck. He said that the flavor was due to the omega 3 fatty acids in the fish meal and flax meal. I guess that means the not-so-yummy eggs are really good for me... He also suggested feeding my ducks a lower protein feed, such as 16%. But, I though ducks needed 17% protein...

I'm probably just going to ferment the feed for an extra day. The fermenting of the feed seems to predigest some of the protein, so a little more fermenting might get rid of the flavor all together again. I currently ferment for about 1.5-2 days (I try to start the next batch right after I feed the ducks, but sometimes life gets in the way). Since I reuse the liquid from each ferment, it ferments pretty fast (doest pretty much all it's bubbling and expanding within 14 hours of starting a new batch).

The first person I talked to at Scratch and Peck ended up referring me to their animal diet expert, and she explained a bit more about what was going on with the flavor. Here's what I understand so far. The fishy taste and smell comes from trimethylamine, which is caused by the oxidization of choline. When a fish rots--and it's choline oxidizes--the lovely rotten fish smell of trimethylamine comes about. Foods that contain high amounts of Omega 3 fatty acids--such as oils and meals derived from fish, linseed, camelina, and rapeseed--also have choline. And, when a bird digests that choline via bacterial fermentation in their guts, trimethylamine is created. Many (most?) poultry can convert the trimethylamine in their livers into a nonodorous form. Others, such as 5-10% chickens that lay brown eggs, and supposedly my ducks as well, cannot convert the trimethylamine in their livers. So, that delightful off flavor is passed onto my duck eggs (and meat as well). In the case of the chickens (couldn't find anything about ducks), there is actually a gene responsible for their ability/inability to transform the trimethylamine, and you can actually get your chicken tested to see if it has the desirable gene or not. You can also, supposedly, smell their breath. Those with fishy breath cannot do the transformation.

There's also things that can make it more difficult for poultry's livers to process the trimethylamine. The tannins in rapeseed and linseed interfere with the liver's ability to transform it to it's nonodorous form. Wheat, barley and leguminous plants help the gut ferment more choline into trimethylamine.

ASIDE from the trimethylamine issue, the fishy-flavor can be caused simply by polyunsaturated acids (such as linseed and fish oil).

Here's the sources I used for wrapping my brain around this: Wikipedia on Trimethylamine, Omega 3 Fatty Acid Research, pages232&233, ISA Genetics, "'Fishy' Taint in Brown Eggs ", and Do Your Eggs Taste Fishy, Curse of the Omegas

So, my eggs are fishy because my ducks eat lots of Omega-3 rich foods, and cannot transform some of the compounds into non-stinky forms. I wonder if, by fermenting their feed, I am helping pre-digest that choline into a non-odorous form? Also, wonderful woman at Scratch and Peck (who pointed many of the above research out to me), said that she noticed that poultry that get lots of water are less likely to have the fishy taint, and that she tastes it the most in poultry during the summer heat when they aren't drinking as much. This makes a lot of sense, really, since water likely really helps the liver function.

She also suggested that I could cut back on their feed and substitute about 1/3rd of their feed for scratch (such as a mix of barley, wheat and oats), and that reducing the amount of omega 3s should reduce the fishy flavor. I almost wonder, since the transformation from stinky to not-stinky form of trimethylamine takes place in their livers, if having too much is actually taxing to their livers?

So, I've got some answers, and a lot more questions. I really wish I had a better understanding of the inner workings of livers, etc. so I could better know how to apply this knowledge (and to know if I'm really understanding it correctly). But, physiology, etc has never been my strong point...

Nifty, thanks for the continued updates; I'll be interested to hear how the continued diet experiments go.

At least you know it's not something 'wrong' with the eggs per se!

From a total layman's perspective, if the liver is responsible for removing this, and there is more than it can remove... it kinda sounds like a suboptimal thing, since if it wasn't, why would the liver be removing it in the first place...?

Dillon Nichols wrote:

From a total layman's perspective, if the liver is responsible for removing this, and there is more than it can remove... it kinda sounds like a suboptimal thing, since if it wasn't, why would the liver be removing it in the first place...?

That's what my husband and I were thinking. Upon further research, I found that humans also have a the same sort of genetic conditions, called Trimethylaminuria. Those with it also cannot convert the trimethylamine, and so have fishy-smelling urine, breath and sweat (and probably "eggs"/periods, too, but no one talked about that!) when they eat foods rich in choline. According to the few pages I've read so far, their liver's inability to convert the trimethylamine causes no actual health problems, only social and emotional ones...

"While TMAU does not cause other medical problems, it can be extremely stressful for affected individuals. While some people with TMAU are not aware of their body odor, other people with the condition are very sensitive to it and may become socially withdrawn as a result. The disorder can cause generally negative effects on educational, personal, social, and career environments. TMAU has also been associated with severe depression, occasionally leading to suicidal tendencies, although evidence of this is lacking." (http://www.healthinhandorganics.com/ns/DisplayMonograph.asp?StoreID=9b80268fe45a4f9eb80f01f5295f7abd&DocID=condition-trimethylaminuria).


BUT, the same page also mentioned that patients with liver failure also can have Trimethylaminuria. They didn't get into the cause/effect, though I would assume that I wish I knew if my ducks have a genetic inability to convert the trimethylamine, or if their livers are just too overwhelmed by having too much choline in their diet...

Wow, great research you've done here. What an odd problem. I'm surprised this genetic issue hasn't been entirely bred out yet, at least with chickens if not ducks. Glad the fermentation is working out for you. There's another advantage for fermented feed to add to the list.

It's taken me a year, but I'm going to finally post my embarrassing update on the flavor in duck eggs: We'd been washing our duck eggs in COLD water, rather than HOT water.  When you wash with cold water, it makes the contents of the egg shrink away from the shell, drawing bacteria from the exterior to the interior. And, with duck eggs--which usually have quite a bit of poo on them, no matter how much you change their bedding--there's a lot of poop and nastiness going into the egg.

I don't recall exactly when we changed our way of washing, but I'm pretty sure it was about the same time as we started fermenting our feed. So, I'd assumed it was the fermenting that removed the flavor. But, then I stopped fermenting the feed (the weather got warm and the fermenting had this horrible smell due to kahm yeast. I was pregnant, and I just couldn't handle it). Anyway, we stopped fermenting and still feed our ducks the same exact feed as we did back before we fermented...and there's no off-flavor in the eggs! Our eggs literally tasted poopy because there was poop in them. How gross is that?!?!  

So, if you have off flavor in your eggs, make sure you're washing them correctly, in HOT water! [at least 90 degrees F, so water that feels hot to bare skin, but not unbearably so]

More info on washing eggs can be found here: http://www.thepoultrysite.com/articles/1548/smallscale-egg-handling-1/

That is very interesting to know.  Maybe this is gross to admit, but I have never washed a duck egg!  Perhaps because our ducks are muscovies, their eggs (as long as they are harvested fresh) are clean.  They are more terrestrial then other ducks, and don't make mud. Their poo is still liquidy and explosive, but they seem to keep the nest area clean and dry.  But, if I ever wash an egg in the future, I'll remember this!

Muscovies must be much cleaner layers than mallard breeds! I put new pine shavings in my nesting boxes everyday, and it doesn't make much difference. I have some ducks that will lay clean eggs, even if the bedding is a little soiled. But I also have ducks that love to go into perfectly clean nesting boxes and make giant poos, or to poo on top of their eggs. There is almost always some poo on every duck egg I bring in, and sometimes there's big patches of poo stuck to it. So gross! If my ducks laid clean eggs, I probably wouldn't wash them, either. I'm envious of your muscovies' ability to produce clean eggs!

Oh God yes, Muscovies are more like chickens than ducks. Our Muscovy perched on the fence with the chickens, and when we had Swedish ducks she shunned them totally. She liked to drink from the hose but didn't jump into the drinking water and soil it in 2 minutes. And she built a nest behind the hay bales and layed religiously. I accidentally grabbed one if her eggs making friends eggs in the morning, no bad taste at all. Eggs were good sized, and sold for a premium for baking.

Whether you are talking ducks, cows or any other animal, the meat, milk and eggs taste can always be impacted by their diet, so that would always be the first place i would look and the first change I would make.  Back when I was growing up, venison made up a good bit of our diet.  We kept a small field planted with winter oats or something to feed the deer over the winter and kept mineral blocks out for them in that field.  Parents didn't allow hunting in the field, but it sure helped the taste of the meat so was worth the investment.

Agree with about the Muscovies.   Muscovies technically are not ducks, but they do act and look like ducks.  LOL!  Except they are quiet.  Very quiet in comparison to 'real ducks'.  And the meat is more beef like than duck like.  They are big - so big that when a hawk tried to get one of my males, the hawk wound up on the ground under the Muscovy and had to be rescued.  Anyone seen the You Tube guy in Canada who raises hundreds of Muscovies and donates the meat to a homeless shelter?

Mine do love the water even if they technically don't have the same requirements as ducks.  They do dirty it just as fast, in my experience.  In the summer especially, they love their evening bath before bedtime and so long as there isn't deep snow on the ground and the water is open they will go down to the creek for a swim in the afternoon with the goose and mallard.  As noted, they roost like chickens so most of the poop inside the house is in one area.  Never had a problem with poop on eggs.

I had 8 in the house last winter and didn't have a problem with odors doing deep litter bedding.  Have half that many this winter so have the chickens and goose in the same house for warmth. The chickens are dong a decent job keeping the bedding turned over so I just have to toss in a bit of fresh stuff every 7 to 10 days.   Poop just isn't that bid a problem.

From what I understand, though they are much like ducks in shape and disposition and name, muscovie's are genetically geese.

Nicole Alderman wrote:(2) You washed your eggs wrong, and literally that nasty flavor came into your egg from OUTSIDE your egg. Make sure to wash with HOT water, and NOT cold.  [/b]

Do you mean you wash your eggs when you collect them, and then keep them in the fridge? Thus the hot to kill pathogenes?

I have heard this is an American way! Here in Europe, it is forbidden to wash eggs! We are told to never do this, to not remove the natural protection of the pores. So we wash the eggs just before consumption!

A local tip when you collect really too dirty eggs.... Wash them with egg white,

I actually collect my eggs and store them in our usually cool-ish garage. It's about 50-70 degrees in there year round. It's never refrigerator temperature. Then, when I'm going to use them, I wash them in hot water. My ducks like to POOP on their eggs. Like, chunks of poop, sometimes covered in poop. I think some ducks go into the nesting box and "bare down" and lay a poop, instead of an egg. This happens a lot in the winter: I'll find big ol' poops in the nesting box, but not in the rest of the house. I clean the nesting boxes every day, putting the old pine shavings into the rest of the duck house and inserting new bedding. And, the nesting boxes have poop in them about 70% of the time. It's rather frustrating! The 14 ducks have an 8x8 house with four attached nesting boxes. It's not like they are crowded into the nesting boxes and poop there. But, they almost always poop. And, even if they don't poop in there, there's usually some poop streaks on the egg.  From what I've read (and seen with our old chicken) ducks are much messier layers than chickens. I don't really want to crack an egg that has poop streaks on the shell and have the whites/yoke touch the edge of that when they come out.

So, um, yeah, we always wash our eggs before we use them, but we don't wash them until we're about to use them!

Thanks Nicole, that was useful to precise! That you do not wash them until you use them!

And fascinating information, just in case one day I decide to have duck, I am warned!!

Ho maybe.... just in case there is something to do about it... if there is a sort of memory/impregnation... with dogs/puppies, this is striking... the habit of a young dog to pee/poo is highly determined by the substrate they were raised on, at the early beginning! Raised outdoor, puppies will be triggered to peepoo on earth, and suffer in the city looking for it...

And in the house, if they were raised outdoor, -> they will climb on your indoor plant pots! Raised on cement -> do it on the tile floor! and do it easily in the street. Raised on sheets and blankets? -> they will target your carpets! Or even your sofa...

So I suggest to check if there is something like this possible for ducks.... after all, geese get impregnation about the beings around, so why not about this? I would be curious about it...

How do you ferment the food please?

John C Daley wrote:How do you ferment the food please?

Sorry it took me so long to respond! Here's some great info on how to ferment Scratch and Peck's  Fermenting Feed Guide