Drake gets agressive and charge at air

[Bochama]

Hello guys

I hope you can help me. My Rouen drake is four months old and has two female ducks in his flock to keep him company. He has started to mate our Black Swedish recently. Nowadays, he is showing this bizarre behavior. When all of us are cuddling together in a quiet room, he suddenly gets up with a sort of battle quack. His body tenses, his tail goes up and down in quick succession and he then charges at air. His head starts shaking then. This makes my hens nervous, myself included. I try to calm him down in soothing voices, he does calm down for a few minutes and starts playing with me. But then he again goes in this battle mode. It is almost impulsive like he does not want to do it but he can't help himself. Any idea what's going on?

 

[CoriM]

Maybe you could post a video.

 

[Bochama]

Maybe you could post a video.

I will try to take one and post it.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Sounds like he’s coming into his drakeness lol in other words he is showing he’s going from duckling to drake. He may even do a sudden stand up head down fast walk whistle too which is hilarious.

 

[Bochama]

Sounds like he’s coming into his drakeness lol in other words he is showing he’s going from duckling to drake. He may even do a sudden stand up head down fast walk whistle too which is hilarious.

yes exactly thats what he does. He even tries to come for me sometimes but it doesnt hurt.

 

[Schell1226]

I call that the teeter-totter! They'll do a quick up and down motion with their entire body, then straighten their neck all the way out and quickly walk in circles around themself! Both my drakes do it when they're excited. It's absolutely hilarious to watch and completely normal behavior.

 

[Miss Lydia]

And that whistle that goes with it.

 

[Miss Lydia]

yes exactly thats what he does. He even tries to come for me sometimes but it doesnt hurt.

If he gets aggressive lay him down on his belly holding onto his neck so he can't nip you and another hand down where body meets tail wait till he stops squirming before you let him up. My Muscovy drake has to be laid down on his belly at least 1X a day now since breeding season is starting up.

 

[ruthhope]

yes exactly thats what he does. He even tries to come for me sometimes but it doesnt hurt.

For me, biting whether or not it hurts is a no no. One of my young muscovy drakes gets over excited and forgets he is not supposed to bite my feet. If he persists after I say No! I put him in a dog crate for 10 minutes. His friends [my other drakes] all go and stay with him outside the crate and when I let him out, he is good as gold. Sometimes he goes in every day at the moment; sometimes he "remembers" and doesn't need time out for 2 or 3 days. He wasn't in there today.

I was very surprised yesterday as my great soft lump of a muscovy drake who never bites, bit the ankles of a visitor who I was taking to see my composters. I think he must have been playing "guard duck" and so I didn't put him in the dog crate. Instead, I gave the visitor a short cane that I have used to herd the ducks toward their coop, for her to wave around her legs. That was enough to deter the great not-so soft lump of a muscovy drake from further biting. The experience was not nice for my visitor who last met the muscovy when he was a little yellow rescued fluff ball being hand raised.

The rambunctious drake didn't come a biting yesterday. He followed us round -- as did all the ducks -- but made no attempt to come up and bite me or the visitor.

It's all male hormones and my juveniles are experiencing the surge for the first time this year.

 

[Bochama]

Thank you for your reply everyone. Whenever he tries to attack me I dnt move away and hold his beak gently. He moves away and stops his attack. Hes probably hormonal right now. If his attacks get worse I will follow your advice.