Question about adding more ducks to our flock.

This Spring will be 2 years since our beloved duck Duke was dumped at our creek along with her sister (who was too sick to make it), and we took her in and fell in love.

Shortly after Duke arrived in our home we brought in 2 ducklings who someone who lived in an apartment had bought and decided an apartment wasn't a good place for ducks (right?). They both turned out male, a Rouen and a Cayuga/Runner; Rhett and Link.

Rhett and Link get along wonderfully, like seriously bonded wonderfully. They panic when out of each others' sight, are always following each other around, and really don't care if anyone else is in their presence. Rhett is obviously in charge though.

The 3 of them, Duke (f), Rhett (m), and Link (m) have been together since Summer of 2015. The boys gave Duke a bit of a hard time last Spring, and I don't want to go through another Spring with her being the only female in the flock.

For all the concern I had when the boys went through puberty they ended up not hating each other, and I would hate to now 2 years later cause fighting between them...we really want to get 2 females late Spring. I have no idea what kind of balance upset to be prepared for, and am still deciding if it is the right thing to do.

Any help, thoughts, and advice are greatly appreciated. TYIA!

Might as well share a pic of them all They had just gotten done eating the weeds on the patio and Rhett noticed his reflection in the window. So they all visited with 3 new ducks lol.

I should mention wild ducks fly into our yard to visit once in a while,and Rhett is the only one which is aggressive with them.

They are lovely birds. I know nothing about ducks, but I heard lots of good things about Mezter farm. They sell sexed ducklings. Better yet,  Golden 300 Hybrid Layer is sexlink, so you should definitely get females.

I don see a problem with adding more females, but youll have to do it carefully. I would get fully mature females, so the drakes do not gang up on them when they are not ready. I would put them (new ducks) in a ''look no touch'' pen for a while, then put Duke in with them (still in view of Rett and Link) so the girls can bond, then add the boys. As for what breed, if you are not cared about eggs and stuff, two more pekins like Duke sound good to me, what with em all lookin the same.

Good luck!

Getting more females would be a very good thing to do, because going through the spring and summer as the only female can be VERY ruff. When we bought our two new hens we put them right in with the rest of the ducks which had three drakes and we didn't have a single problem, the ducks all got along very well. Awwww... They are VERY cute! I think Link is a chocolate runner.

More females is the way to go! I agree, adults would be the easiest to integrate, though finding a few adult females is likely to be harder than finding straight run ducklings.

Thank you for the input all! It's good to hear things wouldn't be upset too much with the introduction of a few females. I have my heart set on a Cayuga, and my daughter on a Swedish Blue (she really, really wants a Muscovy but we can't find them sexed anywhere and don't want to risk a male). They are the smallest I will go with the size of our current ducks. I planned to get them as ducklings and do slow introduction as they grow, and putting them all in together when the new females are close to full grown. The look not touch pen is a fantastic idea!

As for link being a chocolate runner, we thought so too!...but we tracked down the store the girl got them from and their breeder only does white runners and cayugas, so we figure they got mixed together. This is a shadowed picture of him and he does look more brown, but in the sunlight he has a brilliant green head and that classic oil slick coloring of a cayuga.

I'm sure you will be fine adding some new duckies to your flock- I have found ducks VERY easy to introduce to each other, compared to chickens. Until a couple of months ago I had 7 ducklings (3 weeks old), 6 juveniles (16 weeks old) and 4 adults all running around together with no trouble, in fact they all slept in a fluffy duck pile at night .

I'm sure your Duke will be a lot happier with some friends, and there will be less competition between the drakes if you even out the drake to duck ratio.

Good luck!

caring4birds said:

Thank you for the input all! It's good to hear things wouldn't be upset too much with the introduction of a few females. I have my heart set on a Cayuga, and my daughter on a Swedish Blue (she really, really wants a Muscovy but we can't find them sexed anywhere and don't want to risk a male). They are the smallest I will go with the size of our current ducks. I planned to get them as ducklings and do slow introduction as they grow, and putting them all in together when the new females are close to full grown. The look not touch pen is a fantastic idea!

As for link being a chocolate runner, we thought so too!...but we tracked down the store the girl got them from and their breeder only does white runners and cayugas, so we figure they got mixed together. This is a shadowed picture of him and he does look more brown, but in the sunlight he has a brilliant green head and that classic oil slick coloring of a cayuga.

Click to expand...

Oh, okay.