6 week ducklings bullying Pekin drake??

[yarrowhouse]

We're somewhat new at this, we rescued our adult male Pekin in February, and now we have three 6-week old silver appleyard ladies.

We have been trying to introduce the three younger ladies to the Pekin drake. It seems they are bullying him! Mostly they stay apart, but when they get near, they often chase him, peck him, even jump on him. He has always been skittish, and is dealing with bumblefoot, so he just runs awkwardly away. Occasionally one of the ladies will even go after him from across the yard.

Has anyone experienced something like this, or any advice on integrating them?

 

[sourland]

Give them time. As long as they have plenty of space, and he can avoid them they will work things out. This is a far better scenario than him trying to breed the immature hens.

 

[New duck mommy 2021]

Did you do a see no touch method for a few weeks before hand ?
Depending on the ducks some accept very fast and others take time
The smaller the flock I had the harder it was introducing new ones
Now that my flock is larger they don’t pay much attention
Maybe a head nod or a chase away from a water dish but never aggressive
I do add extra waters and feed when introducing new ones so there is plenty of areas they can still eat and drink
Also I have 5 swimming areas
I find this helps reduce arguing

 

[yarrowhouse]

Did you do a see no touch method for a few weeks before hand ?
Depending on the ducks some accept very fast and others take time
The smaller the flock I had the harder it was introducing new ones
Now that my flock is larger they don’t pay much attention
Maybe a head nod or a chase away from a water dish but never aggressive
I do add extra waters and feed when introducing new ones so there is plenty of areas they can still eat and drink
Also I have 5 swimming areas
I find this helps reduce arguing

Good idea about more waters, feed, pools. We have 4 waters and 2 pools. We'll up the ante with more!

We did a couple of weeks where the ducklings would play in his area, but they were enclosed in a smaller fence. So yes, it was see no touch.