added new ducks

[chicken parm]

just added 2 new ducks to the pen today. I already had a male and female pekin raised together from ducklings about 1 1/2 yrs. old. the new ducks are about 4 months old, a female pekin she's just as big as my male and a female mallard. so 4 all together. now I was worried the older ducks would be the meanies due to age and it's there pen. boy I was wrong! the new pekin is very protective of the mallard they were raised together.they both have my original ducks scared (chasing them away and grabbing them if they come to close) will they work this out? I was hoping to give the new ducks a good home. they've been together now about 5 hrs. any ideas?

 

[rainplace]

I have a thread on this page titled "new bully in the duck pen" or something like that. I had a similar problem this week but with the adult ducks doing the bullying. I seperated them out but let them see and hear each other. Then I would do supervised visits. Now there's still some bullying, but it's not bad.

 

[froggie71]

I think you just have to give them time. We started by free ranging them together, and the duckling and adults pretty much stayed to themselves. They occasionally chased one another away when they got too close. Then we finally added the ducklings to the duck house with the adults. At first the adults would not let the ducklings go in the house, but stayed in the run. We keep food and water in the run so that was ok. After being together for a bit they tend to still stay in their own groups. But I don't really see much bullying unless of course they get too near a broody. LOL

 

[geosheets]

I ended up with a drowned duck when I added my new mandarins to a pen of mandies that were only a week older. I noticed that one of the new ducks stayed in the pond and I figured it would get out when it wanted. Apparently it was afraid or the others were picking on it and a half hour later it had drowned. I ended up putting the new ducks in a cage within the pen for 2 days so they could get used to seeing each other. Then I put ALL the ducks into a pen without a pond(didn't want any more drownings). After a day in there they seemed fine and have been living happily ever since.

 

[chicken parm]

well it looks like the new pekin is a male.

he's being kept seperate from the others but can interact thru the fence. my ducks are being really skiddish. suprising since they are about a year older. does it matter that there are 2 males? they are really afraid of the mallard.