Duckling biting another!! HELP!

[RanditheDuckMother]

So I have 2 ducklings who hatched 2 days apart. One of them just hatched today, after it finished drying off I put it in the brooder with the first duckling. The first one is distancing itself from the younger one and will come after the younger one once in a while to bite it. The younger one started to yell very loud anytime the older one did it. I don’t know if it’s some form of body language but I don’t want the older one to hurt the younger one since it was way to weak to even hatch on its own in the first place. What should I do?

 

[cheezenkwackers]

Give it time, they will be best friends by tomorrow! I think they start establishing the pecking order straight out of the egg.

 

[Trisseh]

Older ones often pick on the slow moving younger ones, I’ve found. Depending on your brooder setup, if you can partition off a section for each at least for the first day while the newbie is figuring out how its legs work and everything, they should be fine by the next day. Not such a concern with normal vigorous hatchlings but if the new one is weak, it may get hurt from the normal behaviour of the first. Mine are always jerks to the new ones if they don’t hatch all together.