Drakes moulting or fighting?

[Rory the Chicken]

I have two drakes (both 9 weeks old) and I have noticed that they are dropping a lot of chest feathers over the past day or so. They have no green on their head so I suspected that they were just moulting into their adult breeding plumage as the female that hatched with them isn’t moulting at all. I also thought that they could be fighting over the female instead, in which case I can separate. Any ideas?

 

[sourland]

Actually they are young for either fighting or molting into their nuptial plumage. Can you post a picture of them?

 

[Rory the Chicken]

Just took a closer look at one of the drakes and I noticed a lot of new pin feathers coming in underneath the down. I found this strange as they cannot be moulting at 9 weeks old as you said. They were hatched quite late on so this might have something to do with it?

 

[Canadian Wind]

I think this is just adult feathering coming in. It doesn't all come in at once, and they may be getting more for the winter?

 

[Rory the Chicken]

Ok thank you, I’ll keep an eye on them though.

 

[Rory the Chicken]

I just found it strange as they grew adult feathers in about 4 weeks ago and then began to moult and grow in new feathers.

 

[DuneDucks]

It's normal for ducks to start molting a few weeks after growing their first set of feathers.