Drake suddenly attacking duck!!

[Cariad]

We have 4 ducks - 1 elderly female campbell, 2 female runners and 1 male runner. They have all lived happily together for 3+ years, but in the last few days the runner drake has started attacking one of the female runners! It is nothing to do with mating and he chases her and grabs hold of any part, including pulling out feathers. She is now scared of him and avoiding the rest of them. They free-range during the day and I separated him off in their overnight pen last night to give her a break. They were all best of friends up until a few days ago. The only change I can see is that the runners have just finished a moult. Any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated. Thank you.

 

[newbyduckmom]

Are you sure it's not to do with mating? Sounds like what one of my drakes does with his "special" hen. The one he seems to prefer for mating purposes.

 

[Cariad]

No, these are proper attacks and he chases her away whenever she gets too close to his current favoured girls. She is definately being ostracised

 

[DUCKGIRL89]

I put my rouen drake my khaki drake and my rouen female in a pen. I just got some khaki girls and I put them in there with them and the rouen drake grabed one of them by the feathers on the back and ran her In to a corner and bred her. Sounds like thats what your drake is doing.

 

[Cariad]

I really don't think it is. I know how vicious duck sex can seem, but he is truely chasing her away and guarding his other girls. He's not trying to pin her down to mate, just attacking and feather pulling. We've kept ducks for nearly 10 years and I've never seen anything like this!

 

[dianaross77]

Is it possible that there could be something wrong with her? I don't know about ducks but I know chickens will single out a weak member of the flock. I think in the wild, a weak member would put the whole flock at risk.

 

[newbyduckmom]

Quote:
Ditto...not uncommon for animals to do this.

 

[grawg]

Sounds identical to what my dominant runner drake is doing to my second drake, seems a bit odd that it's directed to a duck though...

 

[Cariad]

Very odd indeed!! That's a good thought that there maybe something wrong with her - it's brought back a distant memory for me of a friend who had a young chicken being picked on by the others. It turned out that it had a tumour on it's head.

 

[The Red Rooster]

I would seperate the other ducks and just let him be with the female he's being mean to. He might over time bond with her again.