Help!
A bit of back story -
We tried to hatch six Minature Silver Appleyards, we unfortunately only hatched one little duck which meant a quick panic trip to a local farm to buy some more ducklings to keep the little one company (who was only happy when being played youtube videos of other ducklings!).
We now know what we have is three Minature Silver Appleyards, a Swedish Blue, a Swedish Black, and a Rouen. This is obviously a mix in the breeds but also a mix in weight class, my first question is- does this matter? Will they all be happy together or should we split them up?
It also turns out that we have ended up with a split 50/50 sex ratio- 3 drakes (a Minature Silver Appleyard, and both Swedish's) and 3 ducks (2 Minature Silver Appleyards & the Rouen). We know we need to get more ducks to fix our ratio but how many?
I've read so many different things, some say the lightweights are fine on a 1-2 ratio but others say it doesn't matter and regardless it should be at least 1-3 if not 1-5...
If it is fine for the lightweights to have 1-2 then at the moment we could separate them off and then get more ducks for our heavier weight ducks.
They're currently 14 weeks old, is there a better age/time to introduce them to other ducks?
Long story short - We want to keep our ducks as happy and as healthy as possible but if we can avoid getting 13 more ducks that'd be preferable (but of course we'd work it out regardless).
Thanks in advance
A bit of back story -
We tried to hatch six Minature Silver Appleyards, we unfortunately only hatched one little duck which meant a quick panic trip to a local farm to buy some more ducklings to keep the little one company (who was only happy when being played youtube videos of other ducklings!).
We now know what we have is three Minature Silver Appleyards, a Swedish Blue, a Swedish Black, and a Rouen. This is obviously a mix in the breeds but also a mix in weight class, my first question is- does this matter? Will they all be happy together or should we split them up?
It also turns out that we have ended up with a split 50/50 sex ratio- 3 drakes (a Minature Silver Appleyard, and both Swedish's) and 3 ducks (2 Minature Silver Appleyards & the Rouen). We know we need to get more ducks to fix our ratio but how many?
I've read so many different things, some say the lightweights are fine on a 1-2 ratio but others say it doesn't matter and regardless it should be at least 1-3 if not 1-5...
If it is fine for the lightweights to have 1-2 then at the moment we could separate them off and then get more ducks for our heavier weight ducks.
They're currently 14 weeks old, is there a better age/time to introduce them to other ducks?
Long story short - We want to keep our ducks as happy and as healthy as possible but if we can avoid getting 13 more ducks that'd be preferable (but of course we'd work it out regardless).
Thanks in advance
