Aggressive hen?

[SycolinWoodsChickens]

I have 10 ducks. We thought we were buying all females but it was really a straight run (last time I believe the feeds store...). Anyway, we have 4 Pekin males and 5 Pekin females plus one blue swede drake. The blue swede is fine. He's too small so the Pekin girls won't let him breed with them and he seems OK with that. The Pekin boys have just started mounting the hens a few weeks ago. No one was acting too aggressive although we knew some of the drakes would have to go so the females don't get overbred.

Anyway, this weekend one of the males started chasing the other drakes out of the flock/pool/yard/anywhere they were. Fine, I can separate the boys but now I have a female who is beating the heck out of the male ducks. One male was chasing another male last night then she started chasing the male that was the aggressor and when she caught him she kinda beat him up. I've also caught her feather pulling from several of the males. Will her she calm down once the majority of the males are removed? We were going to keep the blue swede (and get him some girls next year) and one Pekin drake with our 5 Pekin hens.

Please some advice. I was expecting some bad behaviour from the boys but I'm not sure what to do with a badly behaved female.

BTW, they are 14 weeks old.

 

[katharinad]

Yes, the dynamic will change almost instantly once the extra drakes are gone. I did remove 4 drakes out of a flock of 13 ducks. I now have 8 girls and one drake. What a difference. The one girl did claim her alpha position and she does rule the other girls. It's not biting but she does bully the one that questions her position. The drake turned into Mr. Charming, since he no longer has to peck on the other drakes. They are a real sweet flock now.