Bonnie is a tart

[misspie]

First off, hi! 15 weeks in on living with our first birds and mostly things are great

(it's a steep learning curve!)
We started with 6 Wyandotte chicks and 4 buff ducklings, all brooded together, moved into their big coop together and free range together happily.
As luck would have it, we ended up with 2 roos (down to one, but that's a different story) and 4 hens
but we also got 3 drakes and 1 duck...
One week ago a workmate who hatched buff duck eggs swapped 2 of my drakes for his 2 girls as he could no longer keep them. One is obviously a boy, which is fine (we'll deal with him later) my problem is the girl Bonnie... she's such a.. tart!
She's pushes everyone around, hogs the food and water constantly and chases everyone away from it - I do have food in several place but she hovers around all of them, then when she's finished orders her duck friends somewhere else, she kicks everyone else out of both pools and is stressing out my favourite drake
Has anyone else had to deal with an aggressive new female duck? I've separated her to knock her down a bit in the pecking order but I'm not sure if it's the same as with chickens, is this an exercise in noisy futility?

It's quite hard to find information on pet ducks, or maybe mine are just odd? My ducks are all head of the pecking order, Whitney my other girl leads the chickens into the coop at night and has been hanging out with them a lot lately as Bonnie is so mean to her

the ducks in their scruffy stage

 

[DemonicFowl]

Welcome to the forum and poultry hood! I have to ask did you just "toss" the new ducks in with the old ones or did you introduce them slowly to each other over a period of time, till you saw acceptance or progress.

Ducks are slow to accept change. When I got muscovys it took them about a year to fully accept living with my Cayugas. They were stronger and drew blood sometimes during egg laying season. I taught Ducktor a lesson that day... took her about 3 other times until she learned not to hurt my Solveig like that again... it takes a while for ducks to get used to other ducks they don't know. If you put ducklings that were not a part of that flock with the adults they would most likely be dead. It could take quite some time but as long as no one is getting hurt you just need to let it run its course. They are just reestablishing their pecking order.

 

[misspie]

Yes, they were just put in together...
I've re introduced a chicken before, slowly so everyone got used to each other, and wouldn't dream of putting new smaller birds straight in with bigger birds who think they own the place.
I had actually planned to do as you suggested with the new ducks, but as they were the same size and age, and replacing 2 who were already leaving, my friend convinced me they would be fine (he's had poultry a long time so i trusted his judgement)

The part that I find weird is the bossy bird isn't my either of my 2 original ducks, my cockerel or even the new drake, it's the new female duck!
Oh well, I guess she is used to being one of only two ducks, so I guess I'll leave them to it.
Thanks!