Drake Puberty?

[TheDaringDucks]

So I had a bizarre thing happen this morning. My oldest drake Geronimo (~ 4 months old) was being so bitey. I let him bite all he wants because he generally doesn't bite hard enough to hurt (unlike one of my hens, Wahoo, who is VICIOUS when she bites). Anyways, he gets riled up on occasion, and just wants to fight, vibrating like mad, and chomping down, and doing (gentle) death twists like a little alligator.

However this time it was followed up by Geronimo latching onto my hand (still not hard enough to hurt), and pushing my hand away until his neck was stretched fully out and just holding it there. I tried to take my hand away incase he was indicating he didn't want me to touch him. But he followed it, grabbed on again and just stretched out his full body length. He did this twice, held it there for 30 seconds or so, and then was perfectly happy and relaxed and back to his gentle affectionate nibbles.

So I am curious if this behavior means anything in particular. The only thing I can imagine is that Geronimo is going through duck puberty and the behavior is some sort of courtship/mating/sexual awakening-frustration thing. Notably there weren't any... Ahem... displays around his vent to indicate if he was horned up or not, so I'm left confused.

He isn't bothering my hens, and he was raised as a single duck for the first two months of his life, so I wonder if he is mixed up on what species he is and courting me instead

 

[HollowOfWisps]

Drakes that are imprinted on humans will often do this once they start to reach sexual maturity. They see you as their flock and want you to submit. Unfortunately while the biting may not hurt now as they continue to grow and gain strength in their mouth it can become much more painful and even leave bruising. It goes from a little pinching feels to feeling like someone pinched you as hard as they can and started twisting.

 

[TheDaringDucks]

Drakes that are imprinted on humans will often do this once they start to reach sexual maturity. They see you as their flock and want you to submit. Unfortunately while the biting may not hurt now as they continue to grow and gain strength in their mouth it can become much more painful and even leave bruising. It goes from a little pinching feels to feeling like someone pinched you as hard as they can and started twisting.

So out of curiosity then, since his biting doesn't hurt, is there any harm in just letting him continue his little display? Is just allowing him to bite and hold my hand out in front of him until he let's go = submitting? Is there any harm in allowing him to do so? Any benefit like relieving his tension or whatever? Or is that a behavior I need to nip in the bud and put a stop to somehow, like making him submit in someway?

 

[KathiQuacks]

So out of curiosity then, since his biting doesn't hurt, is there any harm in just letting him continue his little display? Is just allowing him to bite and hold my hand out in front of him until he let's go = submitting? Is there any harm in allowing him to do so? Any benefit like relieving his tension or whatever? Or is that a behavior I need to nip in the bud and put a stop to somehow, like making him submit in someway?

The harm with letting him continue is that it will reinforce him to do it again, and again, and again, likely getting more frustrated and aggressive in the future.

Trying to dominate him back may help, or it may reinforce the belief that you are a duck and have him wanting to mate you more, or fight you later

Not exactly the same, but I had 2 duck hens raised alone who also did this biting, mating behavior with me. I stopped hanging out with them as much and didn’t entertain their behavior at all. If they bit me, I stood my ground and redirected their bills. Eventually, after many, many weeks, they moved on to flirting with the other ducks instead.