Duck Hen mounting another duck hen…

[urlocalcrazychickenlady]

Does anyone have an issue with your hens mounting your other hens?? Is that normal and how do I make it stop, if there even is a way…? It grosses me out All of my hens do it except for one. I have 3 that do it every now and then, not very often, and it’s only ever in water. Also, they do it whether there are drakes in the flock or not.

 

[sourland]

Ducks are extremely hormonally driven. They truly believe: "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with."

 

[urlocalcrazychickenlady]

Ducks are extremely hormonally driven. They truly believe: "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with."

Aghhhhhh

 

[Papaye]

Hi.

Does anyone have an issue with your hens mounting your other hens??

Yep. Can happen sometimes... from what I have seen, more so during mating season, given hormones are generally out of control at the time...

Is that normal and how do I make it stop, if there even is a way…?

It is normal, and there is no way to stop it.

Looks like a show of dominance going on here : your ducks sound to be establishing a social hierarchy...?

(Even for drakes, when they want to assert dominance, they do the same : they mount each other.
But that mostly happens during mating season.)

It grosses me out

Technically, it is not a sexual behaviour.

 

[Jenbirdee]

To be honest, I have never seen a day where they did not (except when they were little babies ) and you cannot train it out of them. I call it play mating. Oh wait hang on it’s possible that I may have seen a few days without play mating in the winter when it was ice and snow out they had no pools to swim in

 

[KathiQuacks]

Yep, it’s normal. Ducks are very crazy. It can be dominance, but for my ducks, it’s usually play-mating. My girls were all-over each other during their first year, even with their 2 drakes. They’ve calmed down a lot since, but they will still play-mate occasionally.