3 males-no females and ALL fighting

[rookie08rip]

Any assistance is greatly appreciated. I have two mallards and one welsh harlequin, and all are males. They are all fighting. They have all been raised together since birth and are now 1 week shy of five months. It got so bad we had to separate them in two separate pens last night. Any ideas? Is this a pecking order thing? Will they "figure it out" like dogs? Or is their version of figuring it out mean death or ostracizing of one or all of the ducks?

 

[teach1rusl]

I don't know ducks, but my opinion will put this back up on the board for others (who do know ducks) to see...

I have to think that the duck hierarchy thing works similarly to chickens, so I would think it's a coming of age thing, since no females are involved. As they're coming into their hormones, they're figuring out their pecking order.

Are your birds contained or free range? If they free range, is it possible that some wild ducks stopped nearby for a visit, and that may have been what set them off?

 

[Kevin565]

Just sounds like hormones are kicking in and everyone is trying to figure who the top drake is going to be.

 

[rookie08rip]

Thank you for the responses thus far. The three hellions are somewhat free range. They go to "bed" at night. I have yet to see any other ducks on the property or on the pond. We have 5 dogs and they pretty much keep other critters from lounging about the property. We have trouble even getting the ducks off the patio. They prefer to use the kiddie pool instead of the three acre pond that is at their disposal. So there view of the "outside" world is fairly limited.