Aggressive new ducks

[goldgardener]

Hi everyone, today I got some new adult ducks, five females and on male. They are starting fights with my other ducks- neck biting and pulling on feathers, no actual injuries. It's mainly the females, their drake pecked at one of my older girls and got chased across the yard. My other ducks are from multiple different homes and never attacked each other when they were introduced, so I'm wondering what's different. I have them separated for the night, but they spent a few hours together outside and had several confrontations. Is this normal when mixing flocks?

 

[Jenbirdee]

yes it’s normal - this time of year my ladies have a few fights to reestablish order. and I didn’t even add anybody new since spring.
did you keep them on the other side of a fence so they can look but not touch for at least a few days up to a couple weeks before letting them all be together?
that’s supposed to help them get used to each other

 

[goldgardener]

No, we've started on a fence and havent completed it. I noticed its just one of the new hens intitiating most of the fights, she keeps picking on another hen we got from the same owner. Thinking back, some of my other hens did peck at eachother/try to dominate and have been calmer the last month or so, so maybe its just seasonal/hormonal changes.