Drakes beating up on my little Rouen girl..needing advice

[Megan_M]

I have 4 Rouen females and 4 Rouen drakes. One of my girls (she’s the smallest) is missing hair all down her neck and she has gashes in the side of her face which are causing her pain. I have witnessed the drakes ganging up on her, while the other 3 females try to get them off her. She stays in the coop alone while the other ducks swim in our lake and she’s not eating, not even mealworms....I have taken her out of the coop and into my garage in a tub to be alone with food and water while I monitor her food and water intake. Any suggestions? I’m so worried about my baby! Thanks!

 

[johntfs]

Figure step two (step one was getting the injured girl away from the drakes) is to separate the drakes from the other females before they start ganging up on them.

Maybe get some duck diapers and bring the injured duck into your actual house for some TLC. Or put another female with her in the garage. Ducks freak out if they're alone too much.

Step three is you need to consider what to do with the drakes. You might need to sell/rehome two or three of them. Or harvest them, keeping one, maybe two of the less aggressive ones for breeding.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Poor girl that is not a good ratio you have there actually it should be 1 drake to at least 3 and more females. As your seeing drakes can choose one female and rape her literally to death if someone doesn’t intervene. I suggest you pen up 3 drakes and seriously consider rehoming them. Pick the gentlest of the 4 for your females. Give your beat up female poultry vitamins and make sure she has food and water. Hopefully she’ll recover. Wash her wounds and apply antibiotic ointment .

 

[FoodFreedomNow]

x2 on @johntfs's suggestion to reduce the drake to duck ratio...closer to 1:3 would probably be better for your ducks. Best wishes for your duck's speedy recovery!

 

[sourland]

It's time for the three most aggressive drakes to find a new home. This behavior will become worse as day light period increases.

 

[chickitychickity]

You have way too many drakes. One is the best, but you could keep two. You’ll have to decide on what to do with the other three. If you absolutely want to keep them, then separating the drakes from females is best.

 

[desredmon]

This is only my year long experience... We started with 8 straight run ducks from Tractor supply. We lost one to an unknown cause (probably finding some bit of metal in the yard) which left us with 4 drakes and 3 ducks. As they developed into puberty we separated the most aggressive 2 drakes from the ducks as they were tearing everyone up. Later (about a month ago) we ended up separating one of the two remaining drakes because he became over aggressive to one particular duck. Which leaves us down to 1 drake with three ducks and they now seem to be doing fine as adults. We knew going in that the "optimum" ratio was around 1 drake to 5 or so ducks, but tried to let them sort it out. It just doesn't work over time.

 

[Miss Lydia]

As many of us know from experience multiple drakes once grown can cause so much anxiety not only to the flock but to us also.

 

[Megan_M]

Thanks everyone for the advice! I was afraid it was going to come down to making my flock smaller, which really upsets me because the males are oh so pretty! But what needs to be done, must be done. I’m going to think on the subject for a few days, thanks again!