2 boys...now what?!

[ktduck]

Hi all!

So my two khaki Campbell's ducks are 12 weeks old now. We didn't know the sex of our babies and it is now apparent to us that we have two boys! For a long time we thought we had one girl and one boy. We have determined this because both of them are developing green feathers all over their heads, so apart from a little bit of disappointment in not getting any eggs... I have a couple questions about this set up.

When do drakes become "sexually active"? I have read that they mate up to 30 times a day, with no female duck for the boys, will this impact on them? If they have no...outlet.. For their sexy time needs, will they become aggressive? Or will it hinder their development? Or impact their quality of life?

I could get some more ducks but it's not the best time at the moment as my partner lost his job a month ago and we don't have really the spare money to add to our family right now.

Another problem I am facing is bush turkeys. We have atleast 6 of them living in our yard and they eat all my ducks food, I can't tell when it's empty if my ducks have even had anything to eat or if the greedy turkeys have eaten everything!! Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to stop this problem?? I leave food out for my ducks all day to eat when they like, but this is obviously
Not working and costing me a lot of money to feed every bloody bird In the neighbourhood.

Any advice would be much appreciated as always.

 

[Amiga]

Several Duck Forum members have pairs or more of drakes, and they seem to work it out most of the time. Sometimes there is a dominance problem, where one will mount the other aggressively.

But often there is not such a problem.

I don't have the issue you do with wild critters eating the ducks' food while they are out during the day, but then I keep the ducks in a pen. They do get out for walks with me daily, they aren't stuck in the pen (which I think is pretty nice anyway) all the time.

 

[ducksinarow]

Just put the food in the duck pen when you put them up for the night. They can eat from the time you put them up until you let them out in the morning. Then they can forage during the day.

 

[ktduck]

Okay that's good about the food at night thing, they do a lot of foraging in the day I just wanted to make sure that was enough food for them during the day. Thanks

 

[Miss Lydia]

Okay that's good about the food at night thing, they do a lot of foraging in the day I just wanted to make sure that was enough food for them during the day. Thanks

also during the day you can keep the food right inside the door and the water outside that way they can eat when they want and the water is close by but not in the house where they can make a mess in a short time, Hopefully the Turkeys wouldn't be bold enough to go inside. At 12 weeks i would think they would still want and need a bit of feed also.

 

[Going Quackers]

Can you fence an area down to see if that would discourage them? (turkey's) a pair of boys is probably a good thing, a duck and drake.. not always the best, most drakes require a bit more otherwise they aggravate a singular duck.

 

[Finny]

Hi all!

So my two khaki Campbell's ducks are 12 weeks old now. We didn't know the sex of our babies and it is now apparent to us that we have two boys! For a long time we thought we had one girl and one boy. We have determined this because both of them are developing green feathers all over their heads, so apart from a little bit of disappointment in not getting any eggs... I have a couple questions about this set up.

When do drakes become "sexually active"? I have read that they mate up to 30 times a day, with no female duck for the boys, will this impact on them? If they have no...outlet.. For their sexy time needs, will they become aggressive? Or will it hinder their development? Or impact their quality of life?

I could get some more ducks but it's not the best time at the moment as my partner lost his job a month ago and we don't have really the spare money to add to our family right now.

Another problem I am facing is bush turkeys. We have atleast 6 of them living in our yard and they eat all my ducks food, I can't tell when it's empty if my ducks have even had anything to eat or if the greedy turkeys have eaten everything!! Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to stop this problem?? I leave food out for my ducks all day to eat when they like, but this is obviously
Not working and costing me a lot of money to feed every bloody bird In the neighbourhood.

Any advice would be much appreciated as always.

I keep an all drake flock of three (I am in the process of adding another drake to the flock) and they all get along fine. I recently lost a drake (he was the flock leader) so now the others are wrestling and mounting eachother, but I think this is only because they are trying to figure out who the new leader will be. Before the leader died, they all lived together peacefully and it will return back that way after they establish the new leader.

I am also having trouble with wild animals eating my duck's food. It is not turkeys though, it is deer. They walk into the duck pen and eat their food if the ducks had not already eaten it all!