Duck/drake concerns?

[corriemartin]

Hey folks,

At what age do I need to start being concerned about duck/drake ratios? My little straight-run flock is 5 weeks old, and they're a really congenial group, but at some point I assume it'll start to be a problem to have too many drakes. Is there a particular age I should do something about it, or will it just become obvious?

Thanks.

 

[Zan]

I have a flock of four. 2 hens and 2 drakes, all around 14 weeks. So far, I have not had any issues. They do run with my flock of 20ish chickens in a very large run and free range in the afternoon.

 

[Miss Lydia]

Once mating starts watching for female abuse from over mating is the biggest concern. That’s when action needs to be taken either rehome the excess drakes or get enough females each drake has at least 3-4 females each or drake jail where drakes are separated from the females. And then there’s always the fighting among the drakes too. I have 2 Runner drakes with 9 females and so far that’s working.

 

[corriemartin]

Once mating starts watching for female abuse from over mating is the biggest concern. That’s when action needs to be taken either rehome the excess drakes or get enough females each drake has at least 3-4 females each or drake jail where drakes are separated from the females. And then there’s always the fighting among the drakes too. I have 2 Runner drakes with 9 females and so far that’s working.

That's good to know. So basically, I don't need to worry about any of it until they start mating....

 

[Miss Lydia]

Yep! Do you know now your ratio of ducks to drakes ?

 

[corriemartin]

Yep! Do you know now your ratio of ducks to drakes ?

Not yet. The problem is that there are ten of them, and though none of them look identical, it's hard remembering which one is which. I know for sure that the one with the white markings on his face is a drake, and the one with white wing feathers is also a drake, and that one of the mostly gray ones with some mottled white for a bib is a drake (though I don't know which one). So at least three drakes. Probably four. Maybe more. But lots and lots of quacking. I've spent tons of time sitting with them watching and listening to them, and I've even started taking notes, but too many of them are too similarly marked. Someday soon....

Here they are on our evening foray into the wide wide world.....

 

[Duck mommy 2019]

Once mating starts watching for female abuse from over mating is the biggest concern. That’s when action needs to be taken either rehome the excess drakes or get enough females each drake has at least 3-4 females each or drake jail where drakes are separated from the females. And then there’s always the fighting among the drakes too. I have 2 Runner drakes with 9 females and so far that’s working.

do u think a pekin drake would do good with a khaki hen and a rouen hen?

 

[corriemartin]

Yep! Do you know now your ratio of ducks to drakes ?

Well...we traumatized the ducks by catching them one at a time, listening to them, and taking each one's picture so we could remember which was which, and it turns out that we have 8 ducks and 2 drakes (and we already knew that those two were drakes). Or is it possible that any of them are drakes even though they are definitely quacking? (One did switch between loud quacking and the more drake-like sound, but the others were CLEARLY quackers.). If it really is just two drakes, then we can probably keep them all together.

 

[Miss Lydia]

you can keep them all but you may have the boys fighting. I have 2 Runner drakes with 9 females they don’t fight at all. It really depends on the drakes. Drakes don’t quack loud they rasp.

 

[corriemartin]

Here are the 8 ducks, # 1 - 8. It turns out we didn't need to number and photograph them, since we already knew the two drakes.