Breeding Frenzy from Now until ?

[newbyduckmom]

Apparently, contrary to the weather, it is Spring. My 3 drakes are back in their awful breeding stage. Have only had ducks since last March, and the drakes were awful in Aug-Sept, so not sure what to expect the rest of the year. One of them pinned a duck in the water bowl this morning! So is this permanent behavior until fall?

 

[Miss Lydia]

Apparently, contrary to the weather, it is Spring. My 3 drakes are back in their awful breeding stage. Have only had ducks since last March, and the drakes were awful in Aug-Sept, so not sure what to expect the rest of the year. One of them pinned a duck in the water bowl this morning! So is this permanent behavior until fall?

yes if they are young. My youngest drake is 8months old and everytime I look outside he has 1 of his girls in the pond or on the ground, hes a fanatic. And they don't care where they pin them either as you have seen. lol

 

[Oregon Blues]

From now until forever. It's the way ducks are.

 

[sourland]

From now until forever. It's the way ducks are.

X 2 and if they start gang breeding your hens there is potential for drowning or physical damage.

 

[newbyduckmom]

Yeah, went through the gang breeding thing last fall and separated then entirely for over a month. Just wasn't sure how soon I would need to do it again. I was hoping it would only be for a month in the fall that it would get that bad again (wishful thinking, but not realistic), so they wouldn't have to be kept separated. So far it's not too bad. But definitely is Spring!

 

[Miss Lydia]

I found my young drake inside the chicken coop messing with one of the ducks today when she was trying to lay an egg, good grief give her some slack, I worked to make the pop door hole smaller so hopefully he won't be able to get through it and harass them but I'll just have to wait till tomorrow, and then this afternoon he was standing on top of my Emden gander? I can't beleive my goose let him do this, he would never let my older drake get that close to him, He is a maniac right now. so my plan is if he can still get into the coop I'll have to put him into the fenced front yard with his own food and water until the girls have had a chance to lay. Someone needs to talk to this guy about having respect for the opposite sex. I was hoping my gander would be the one to do it.

 

[newbyduckmom]

Someone needs to talk to this guy about having respect for the opposite sex.

Good luck with that, Miss Lydia. My drakes are getting more aggressive towards me as well. Two of them tried to bite me as I was hand feeding them treats tonight.....ah, Spring. Dang!

 

[beardiemom]

We have 8 male Magpie ducks, who are now 1 1/2. No females. We had to separate them into 3 groups for much of last summer. We built a duck duplex for them and they spent the days together and the nights in two groups. Now that spring has come around again, we have had to separate them again into smaller groups. Two guys are solitary because they were the most beat up and then two groups of three. Hopefully we will get them back to two groups again.

Male hormones. bah!