2 of my drakes are fighting…

[anonymous99]

2 of my pekin drakes have been fighting with each other since yesterday and I don’t know why. One of them will go around pecking the other drakes for no reason. I don’t know what to do. I can’t exactly separate them bc I don’t have another coop. The only thing I could do is put one of them with my 2 females. They’re about 8 months old now. I was scared to leave them last night bc I thought they’d kill each other. I don’t see any injuries on them. Would it be a good idea to put one of them with my 2 girls?? The drakes will even grab each other’s necks. I don’t know how to stop them from pecking each other. They haven’t mounted each other, so I don’t think they’re trying to breed.

 

[BReeder!]

2 of my pekin drakes have been fighting with each other since yesterday and I don’t know why. One of them will go around pecking the other drakes for no reason. I don’t know what to do. I can’t exactly separate them bc I don’t have another coop. The only thing I could do is put one of them with my 2 females. They’re about 8 months old now. I was scared to leave them last night bc I thought they’d kill each other. I don’t see any injuries on them. Would it be a good idea to put one of them with my 2 girls?? The drakes will even grab each other’s necks. I don’t know how to stop them from pecking each other. They haven’t mounted each other, so I don’t think they’re trying to breed.

Reading between the lines here, are there just 2 drakes and 2 female ducks? And what type of ducks?

Ducks are not typically monogamous (there are exceptions, but not in the common domestic mallard breeds or Pekins that I'm aware of). Drakes prefer a harem of female ducks to court, and they will fight with other drakes over the females for breeding rights (especially in early Spring, so you ducks' hormones might be kicking in right about now). In nature the loser of a fight would fly off and look for other ducks to court. In captivity there's often nowhere to fly to sufficiently far enough and most of our ducks cannot fly anyway because they were bred to be egg and meat producing livestock that could be corralled easily.

Now, you need to separate the drakes or provide them plenty of room and plenty of female ducks. I wouldn't even recommend putting the one drake with your 2 females because he will overbreed them, stressing them out and potentially hurting them or worse, killing them. One drake should have at least 3 or 4 female ducks to spread his breeding activities. I have one drake with 6 female ducks right now. If possible, get more females and consider rehoming or processing one of the drakes.

 

[Miss Lydia]

@thumper650 has some really good ideas on how to keep drakes.
Fighting is natural these drakes are prime for hormones so they are going to try and see who can dominate who, When I had multiple Muscovy drakes i could not keep them together they each had their own part of the property we have fenced with their own females.
As far as trying one in with your girls, all you can do is try and see how it goes. If he gets too aggressive and starts pulling out feathers or injuring either of them then it's time for another plan.

 

[ruthhope]

I only have drakes and they have been fighting since the Holidays. It's their hormones coming in. I have my little pekin sleeping in the house at night, but he is out with the two muscovies during the day: he's no angel. He tries to boss around one of the muscovies jabbing at his chest and then pulling his chest feathers. The muscovies have settled down from fighting between themselves with wings flapping and feet raised. But they are still pecking at each other and feather pulling, particularly with the pekin. They are just too mean to the pekin and although he is sociable and wants to sleep in the coop, the muscovies are really mean in there. Partitioning the coop isn't realistic and so I am looking to acquire a medium dog crate with a door on the long side to keep in the coop for the pekin to sleep in. I have a large dog crate that I used for time out when one of the muscovies was attacking me. He has learnt not to do that although he sometimes needs 10-minute reminders not to bite my toes. That large dog crate is in my back yard as it is too large to leave inside the coop. Plus it only has an entrance on the short side.

You might find getting a dog crate to put the dominant drake in at night will help in the short term. Perhaps rehoming one of the drakes, or getting 4 more ducks would help.

 

[nchls school]

I have mallard and call ducks. The flock consists of many drakes; most get along, but when they start fighting as you describe, I get rid of one or both drakes. I have muscovys too, and have given up on having more than one drake.

In my experience, increasing the number of females does not stop the fighting; once started I have found nothing but physical separation to prevent the drakes from fighting. And then down the road with them.

 

[anonymous99]

Reading between the lines here, are there just 2 drakes and 2 female ducks? And what type of ducks?

Ducks are not typically monogamous (there are exceptions, but not in the common domestic mallard breeds or Pekins that I'm aware of). Drakes prefer a harem of female ducks to court, and they will fight with other drakes over the females for breeding rights (especially in early Spring, so you ducks' hormones might be kicking in right about now). In nature the loser of a fight would fly off and look for other ducks to court. In captivity there's often nowhere to fly to sufficiently far enough and most of our ducks cannot fly anyway because they were bred to be egg and meat producing livestock that could be corralled easily.

Now, you need to separate the drakes or provide them plenty of room and plenty of female ducks. I wouldn't even recommend putting the one drake with your 2 females because he will overbreed them, stressing them out and potentially hurting them or worse, killing them. One drake should have at least 3 or 4 female ducks to spread his breeding activities. I have one drake with 6 female ducks right now. If possible, get more females and consider rehoming or processing one of the drakes.

@thumper650 has some really good ideas on how to keep drakes.
Fighting is natural these drakes are prime for hormones so they are going to try and see who can dominate who, When I had multiple Muscovy drakes i could not keep them together they each had their own part of the property we have fenced with their own females.
As far as trying one in with your girls, all you can do is try and see how it goes. If he gets too aggressive and starts pulling out feathers or injuring either of them then it's time for another plan.

I have 7 pekin drakes. I’m gonna try to separate them somehow. I have this crate (or whatever it’s called) that I could use. It’s not much, but I have some hardware cloth that I could use to make a space that they could roam around in. I have some leftover wood too. There’s just the problem of getting a lock and figuring out how to keep rain water from getting in. I’m not sure about which drakes to put in it though since I have more than one drake that fights.

https://imgur.com/2ZfpbU7

 

[BReeder!]

I have 7 pekin drakes. I’m gonna try to separate them somehow. I have this crate (or whatever it’s called) that I could use. It’s not much, but I have some hardware cloth that I could use to make a space that they could roam around in. I have some leftover wood too. There’s just the problem of getting a lock and figuring out how to keep rain water from getting in. I’m not sure about which drakes to put in it though since I have more than one drake that fights.

https://imgur.com/2ZfpbU7

How many female ducks total?

 

[anonymous99]

How many female ducks total?

Just 2, but i have them on the other side of the duck coop bc there’s a divider in the middle.
Edit: Could i add on to the duck coop and make a room for each of the drakes?
Every time i break up a fight, one or the other drake bites me really hard.

 

[Miss Lydia]

7 drakes that is a lot of testosterone. That container doesn't look very large I can't imagine more than one drake in it. I wonder if you could take their pen and make sections so each drake has his own space. I don't know what you'd could do for night time though. When I had 4 Muscovy drakes in my coop we made stalls with tops so each drake had his own "bedroom" That was where they slept at night. The stalls were wood and the top was wood trim with hardware cloth stapled to it for air and to keep them in.

 

[anonymous99]

7 drakes that is a lot of testosterone. That container doesn't look very large I can't imagine more than one drake in it. I wonder if you could take their pen and make sections so each drake has his own space. I don't know what you'd could do for night time though. When I had 4 Muscovy drakes in my coop we made stalls with tops so each drake had his own "bedroom" That was where they slept at night. The stalls were wood and the top was wood trim with hardware cloth stapled to it for air and to keep them in.

Im not sure if I could do that bc the coop is 10 ft wide and 5 ft tall. I’m not sure what to do now as there’s only 2 hours of daylight left.
Edit: I took one of the drakes inside the coop and left him there to calm the fighting, dunno if that’ll stop the other drakes though. The other ducks are hanging out outside and there’s no fighting at the moment.