drake to duck ratio?

[Duck mommy 2019]

ok so right now i have 4 ducks (2 drakes, 2 hens) but i know that ratio will not work in the spring. i have a pekin drake (almost 2 years old), a khaki drake (14 weeks), a khaki hen (6 months), and a rouen hen (14 weeks)

so... right now my pekin is staying with a friend, until we can get more girls. he is not lonely because he has his hatchmate brothers with him. we are getting him back as soon as we get more girls. please don’t suggest rehoming him because i am definitely keeping him, he’s like my puppy.

then the other drake and the two hens are together. they are best friends, and i think the drake will do perfectly fine with just two girls (they are already mating since like 9-10 weeks, and he is nice to them)

so my question is... once i get my other drake home and get more girls (2-3, they will all be rescue girls) should i put all of the ducks together? or do i NEED to make two seperate coops for them? i would love to just have them all together, because my pekin drake also loves my khaki girl and would be sad if he could never be with her again)

 

[Magnolia Ducks]

You can have them all together. 4ducks for every drake. You will just have to monitor putting them together, they will need some time to get used to each other. If you could set up a look don't touch for a few days it would help.

 

[Trisseh]

It’s the same deal as with chickens - some of them are fine, others are not with a different ratio. Some fellas get along fine and others don’t. Definitely better to have their existing flock set up before spring and hormones hit, so they already have a comfortable set up. if you need to change it later, you can, but it’s easier to separate them later than try to throw them all in together after hormones are running high. some ducks do fine as 2 pair too, it just depends on the individuals. Some have their favorite hen and they won’t even look at the others, and some are ravenous never satisfied addicts that will try to mate with anything that moves. (speaking from experience with my ducks lol)

 

[Duck mommy 2019]

You can have them all together. 4ducks for every drake. You will just have to monitor putting them together, they will need some time to get used to each other. If you could set up a look don't touch for a few days it would help.

i can’t have 10 ducks. i will have the 2 ducks and 2 drakes i have now, plus 2 (maybe 3) extra girls

 

[Duck mommy 2019]

It’s the same deal as with chickens - some of them are fine, others are not with a different ratio. Some fellas get along fine and others don’t. Definitely better to have their existing flock set up before spring and hormones hit, so they already have a comfortable set up. if you need to change it later, you can, but it’s easier to separate them later than try to throw them all in together after hormones are running high. some ducks do fine as 2 pair too, it just depends on the individuals. Some have their favorite hen and they won’t even look at the others, and some are ravenous never satisfied addicts that will try to mate with anything that moves. (speaking from experience with my ducks lol)

thank you. also my khaki girl is “the boss” of the flock so i’m hoping the boys won’t be as crazy. right now, if she doesn’t want to mate she will just mount the drake instead

 

[Duck mommy 2019]

we will probably end up making them each a drake jail before spring anyways, just to be on the safe side (only making them stay there if needed)

i still need to worry about introducing them though, anyone know if introducing older ducks is better than doing it with ducklings? not sure how old our new girls will be, but they are rescues so definitely not babies.

i miss having a drake flock, it was so much easier!

 

[thumper650]

My drake flock fights in the Summer. I have to separate my runners from my pekins. I have some dog pen walls that are easy to adjust and split the run in half.
I have a drake jail too for my other flock, but we call it the “apartment”